Blurred Lines
by Mugetsu16
Summary: A boy raised in a way that no one should, much less a child. He is the Dark. A girl, hated for what she could not control, and hated for her inability. She is the Light. Light and Dark. What happens when these two extremes meet? What happens when they try and find solace within one another? Naruto x Claymore
1. Prologue

**OK, so this is my my second fanfiction that I have ever written, so please bear that in mind. For anyone hoping for an update in Forsaken Legend, the next chapter is almost finished, I am sorry but I had lost my muse for a bit. I would like to make one thing clear, the title of this story WAS NOT inspired by that ridiculous song, I named it this for another reason. **

**I would like to give a big shoutout to gazz uzumaki whose story "Blood Ties" inspired this fic. **

**So without further ado, here is the prologue for 'Blurred Lines'**

The village of Konohagakure no Sato had seen better days. Most of the civilians of the village had already been evacuated, or had already been killed. There was one thing that marked the unusual nature of the invasion, and that was the identity of the invader itself.

The aggressor of the village was a giant fox.

Despite the fact that the fox was attacking, it could easily be concluded that this was no ordinary fox. First of all, the fox towered over the trees of the forests surrounding Konoha, trees that had been grown by the Shodaime himself using the Mokuton bloodline. The second thing that marked the fox as unnatural was the number of tails it had. Usually, foxes had one tail.

This one had nine.

These tails weren't idle either. The tails were completing three main tasks. They were either swatting shinobi who were foolish enough to attack head on out of the air, slamming on the ground flattening it, or they were swaying majestically behind the massive fox, giving it a sense of regality.

If an stray shinobi should have gotten the time to look in the eye of the giant beast, however, they would have seen a trio of tomoe surrounding a dot-like pupil. It could be logically concluded that the fox did not have its faculties right now, and that it was being controlled.

The gigantic fox looked seemed to look around, as if searching for a specific target. What could have caused this unprovoked and undetected attack? To find that out, the clock needed to be brought back about one hour.

_**Flashback - 1 hour **_

"Push Kushina-hime, push!" said an blonde, spiky haired blonde. He was wearing a navy blue jumpsuit along with a haori that had the kanji for 'Yondaime' running down its back vertically. His most attention catching feature other than his hair was his striking blue eyes. Right now however, those eyes were clouded in pain as his wife was crushing his hand as he soothed her during childbirth. This man was Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage and new father.

"SHUT UP MINATO, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS FEELS! I DON'T KNOW WHY I LET YOU DO THIS TO ME. I HAVE TO PUSH OUT NOT ONE, BUT TWO BABIES! _TWO!_ WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER, I AM GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR BALLS PERSONALLY!" yelled a beautiful but fiery red head. Her crimson read hair would usually fall down to her ankles were splayed all around her as she was going through the contractions of child birth. She was panting while moaning and pushing, trying to get her baby out of her as fast as possible. This woman was Uzumaki Kushina, formerly of Uzushiogakure no Sato and new mother. As she finished yelling at her secret husband, she clenched her hand even tighter, with the effect of the said blonde paling further. Despite being in severe pain, Minato made sure to hold the seal of his wife's navel together.

Minato briefly glanced to the midwife and wife of his predecessor, Sarutobi Biwako. "Is she going to be okay? She seems to be in a lot of pain. Is there anything that you can to about it?"

In response, the Biwako just snorted before replying. "This is why men don't give birth, they just don't have the strength for it. Kushina keep going. The baby has already crowned. One more push and it should be out of you."

With renewed vigor, Kushina gave one last grunt until the sound of a baby's wails could be heard piercing the night. As Kushina relaxed in exhaustion, Biwako wrapped up the baby, with one look, she passed it on to the proud father and looked at Kushina. "Congrats, it looks like you are going to have a healthy baby boy."

Minato brought the baby up to Kushina, and started to talk to her. "Hey Kushina-hime, look Naruto has your beautiful crimson hair. He is going to be a ladykiller when he grows up."

Kushina looked over, and gave an exhausted smirk. "He had your eyes though. He also has your girly face, so he will only be a ladykiller when the females figure out that he is a boy. When that happens... ku ku ku ku ku... No one is taking my Naru-chan away."

Kushina started to laugh evilly at the thought of beating the girls off of her little boy. Minato just sweatdropped, until Kushina started screaming again. He looked alarmed, and vocalized it.

"Kushina-hime, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

The crimson haired beauty just gave him a scathing look that seemed to say 'Do I look okay?'

Just as Minato was about to continue questioning her, Biwako came back and gave one look at Kushina. She looked up and said "Oh, this is a surprise, it looks like you are going to have triplets. You have my sympathy Uzumaki-san."

When this finished processing in Kushina's mind, she turned slowly to Minato despite being in great pain. This was soon followed by her screams of fury.

"MINATO, THAT IS IT! I AM MAKING SURE THAT I RIP OFF THE ENTIRE LOWER HALF OF YOUR BODY TO MAKE SURE THAT SOMETHING LIKE THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN! 'CHILDBIRTH BEING A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT' MY WELL-TONED ASS!"

Minato had a look of great fear on his face, but continued stabilizing the seal. He placed his newborn son next to his crimson-haired violet-eyed older sister, Narumi. Biwako backed off knowing that getting in the way of an enraged Uzumaki woman was just a death sentence. She held on to the baby, who just seemed amused at his mother's rage.

Soon after this, another cry of a baby pierced the night, this time more feminine. In terms of appearance, she was the opposite of her older brother. She had the round face of her mother, but had a little tuft of sun-kissed blonde hair on top of her head. When the baby opened her eyes, twin violet orbs, similar to her mother's, could be seen peering upwards. Minato cried little tears of joy, and welcomed his daughter into the world.

"Welcome to the world, little Hikari."

He passed the baby to her mother, who looked at the newborn with unrestrained love. After passing of his blonde daughter to his wife, Minato reached over and retrieved his daughter in one hand. Just as he was about to rise to take his son from Biwako's care, Minato and Kushina both heard two thudding sounds behind them, just a moment apart from each other. When Minato turned around, his blood ran cold. Standing there was a masked man holding his middle child, with the corpses of both medics on the ground.

"Biwako, Taji!". Just as the hokage was going to continue in his panic, the masked man interrupted and started talking in a calm, crisp voice."

"Yondaime Hokage, step away from the Jinchuuriki unless you want your son to die at the ripe age of 1 minute."

Minato started to panic even more, and raised his free hand to his chest in a disarming gesture while still managing to hold onto his daughter. "OK, let's just calm down, no need to kill my son."

If Minato could see under the intruder's mask, he would see a small, almost unnoticeable smirk. "I am calm Yondaime Hokage-san, it is you who needs to calm down. However, it seems that you are not taking me seriously. Let me give you an incentive to do so."

After he finished saying this, who threw the wrapped baby up into the air. As the baby was still on the journey up, the masked man pulled out a kunai and readied himself to make a swipe upwards.

Kushina, seeing this, cried out in horror. "NARUTO!"

While his wife was unable to move, Minato was not. With his one free hand, he threw one of his famous kunai to the wall directly behind the airborne baby, and hiraishined away, grabbing the baby in his free hand and saving him from the approaching kunai.

The masked man raised a hidden eyebrow and said "It looks like your speed is not just a myth, but tell me, can you get away from this in time?"

As he finished his statement, the swaddling clothes that Naruto was wrapped in started to smoke. Minato, finally noticing a trio of explosive tags on the underside of the baby, pulled of the blanket and managed to teleport himself quickly to his wife and grab his other daughter while the elder redhead was till in shock. He then hiraishined away to a safe location.

Kushina, registering the explosion, just sat there, shocked. She hoped that her babies and love got out of the explosion intact, but she had other problems at the moment. Namely, the creepy man who was advancing upon her, hand extended. He grabbed her wrist, and before Kushina could resist, she was pulled into a dimensional pocket. Before she could concentrate on anything around her, she reappeared in the outskirts of Konoha, chained to a pillar. The masked man put his palm on the weakened seal, and started to focus his chakra.

"Come forth and serve me, Kyuubi!", he yelled, slightly deranged. The seal started to fall apart, and a layer of red chakra could be seen surrounding the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. Soon, a greater amount of crimson chakra started to bubble out of her and into the sky. It coalesced into the shape of a fox with nine tails.

The Kyuubi no Kitsune, greatest of the nine bijuu, was now free to wreak havoc again.

Just as the fox was regaining its bearings, the masked man appeared in front of the Kyuubi and peered into its eyes. The man's sharingan started to rotate, and the same pattern could be seen in the eyes of the fox, signifying that the fox was under the control of the man.

"Come Kyuubi. Let us go destroy Konoha." The fox just let out an ear-piercing roar, and just as the duo were about the depart, they heard a weak voice calling up to them.

"Just wait a second, -ttebane, you two are not going anywhere." The seemingly dead Kushina was propped up against the pillar, and she was panting heavily. Despite trying to sound strong, it was obvious that she was very weak at that point.

The man just looked down on the broken form of his victim, amusement clear in his exposed eye. "The vitality of the Uzumaki sure is powerful. Not even having a bijuu extracted from you is enough to kill you. Still, I think it would be fair if the Kyuubi killed its former jailer. It is poetic, without a doubt."

The Kyuubi in response raised one of its clawed hands and thrusted downwards. Kushina, seeing the approaching claw, just shut her eyes tightly.

"_I'm sorry, Minato-kun"_

Just before the claw impacted the ground, a flash of yellow appeared. The Hokage appeared, and hiraishined his wife and himself back to the safe house that his children were located in.

The masked man noticed this. He sighed, but then regained his composure. "No matter. While I had hoped that I would kill her, she and her husband will be dead by the end of the night. Come Kyuubi, we have a village to destroy."

_**At the Safe House**_

Kushina was laying next to her children, cuddling the three of them of them to her bosom. She looked lovingly at her children, to make sure that they were safe. Once she confirmed their good health, she looked at the love of her life, and started to questions him.

"Minato-kun, what happened? I almost thought that one of the babies had died in the explosion."

Minato looked back and answered. "The explosion nearly got to us, but I managed to hiraishined to the marker that was just outside the cave. After this, I came here and tucked the kids in to make sure that they were safe. I came back to the cave, but you were long gone. By the time that I got to you and saved you from that claw, it was too late."

Minato, not waiting for a reply from his wife, went to a nearby closet and pulled out his iconic haori. His slipped his arms through the sleeves, and gave one look back at his wife. She, in turn, gave a small nod to her husband, an action that received the same response. As he left, Kushina laid there in thought.

"_Be careful Minato-kun. We need you. Uzumaki or not, I don't know how long I can last without any help, and our children deserve to have both of their parents with them as they grow up."_

_**Meanwhile in Konoha**_

The masked man was standing in the middle of Konoha, with no one noticing him. He ran through a series of hand seals and called out his jutsu.

"**Kuchiyose: Kyuubi no Kitsune!"**

The tranquility of the peaceful village was suddenly broken. A roar tore through the peace of night, shocking a large number of ninja out of bed, and overloading the available sensor nin who were not expecting a sudden influx of potent chakra. The masked man was standing upon his charge, ready to give a command.

"Time to wreck this place. Kyuubi, you know what to do."

The giant fox gave no sign of understanding, but opened its mouth. Balls of positive black chakra and negative white chakra started gathering at a rapid pace in front of its mouth. In less than a second, the attack was completed. As the attack was fired at the hokage monument, many ninja froze in fear as they recognized the attack. It was, of course, the signature jutsu of all the bijuu.

The Bijuu Dama.

Just as the great attack was about to collide with the monument, a barrier lined with kanji erupted from a man holding a kunai. As the attack was absorbed by the barrier, many ninja breathed a sigh of relief. It was the hero of the Third Shinobi World War, it was the Yondaime Hokage.

After the attack was absorbed, the blonde released the kunai in the air. A few moments later, a colossal explosion lit the light sky as many of the greener shinobi gazed in awe at it.

As Minato was preparing to confront the Kyuubi, he felt someone grab him from behind. He hiraishined away, bringing his unwanted passenger along for the ride. When the both of them reappeared, they were at one of the numerous training grounds in Konoha. He realized that the person who grabbed him was the masked man.

The masked man started to talk. "Sorry, Yondaime-san, but I cannot allow for you to interfere. I need the Kyuubi to destroy the village, and you are getting in the way." As he was saying this, he pulled a length of chakra-absorbing chains with two cuffs on each end out of his robe. He attached the chain to himself, and proceeded to charge his opponent without waiting for a response.

Minato was momentarily shocked at the brazen attack. _"Is he stupid or something? A head on charge never works. He has to be a good ninja to infiltrate Konoha so easily, so he must want me to underestimate him. I better be careful."_

Minato responded in kind, charging his opponent as well. He raised a kunai, ready to slash at the head of his opponent. The moment he thought his attack hit, however, he just phased through the man.

The blonde kage was shocked yet again. He was knocked out of his shock when he noticed that the chain was starting to encircle him. He hiraishined away, this time to a marker that was on the opposite side of the field.

"_What was that? I just went right through him! That was probably why he was not scared to charge like that, he knew that he would phase right through the attack. I bet though that he needs to be tangible to touch me, otherwise he probably would have grabbed me just as I was passing through him. Let me try this..."_

The cerulean-eyed fighter raised one of his kunai, and threw it at his opponent. He followed soon after, forming a rasengan in his hand. In return, his opponent just snorted. "You have already tried something similar to this. Why do you try doing this again. Here I though you were a genius."

As the kunai passed through the head of his opponent, the masked man reached out to grab his adversary. Just as he was about to make contact, his opponent teleported out of his sight, leaving him stunned. Just as he was about to turn to try and find his elusive pray, a great pain started growing on his arm. He let out a scream of pain as he was blasted away.

Minato did not waste any time and closed the distance between the two when he had the chance. He pulled out a seal, and placed it on his opponent while activating it. When this happened, the masked man noticed his connection to the Kyuubi disappear.

"A contract seal, eh Yondaime-san? So you have severed my connection to the Kyuubi. No matter, it will still destroy the village and you will be dead by my hand by the end of the night. Nothing will change."

Minato took this chance to address his adversary in turn. "You have the sharingan, and you were able to slip into this village so easily and kill the anbu with minimal trouble. You were also able to place the kyuubi under your control. There is only one Uchiha that I think has the power to do all this. Isn't that right, Uchiha Madara?"

The masked man made no visible reaction to what his adversary had said, until he started speaking.

"It is as you say, Yondaime-san. I want to see this village destroyed after everything that it had done to me. Who are you to deny me?"

Minato just gave an impersonal response. "I am going to stop you for my village, for my wife, and for my children. None of them will die today, and they will not die before I do, if I have anything to say about it."

The masked man turned around, ready to leave. "Well, my work here is done. I wish you luck in your endeavors." With that, a vortex seemed to swirl around him, and he disappeared.

The blonde leader just looked at the spot where his recent enemy had just been. _"Damn it! He got away! Well, that does not matter right now. I need to get rid of the beast that is trying to tear apart my village right now. Then I can worry about the masked man."_

After the young hokage finished his mental tirade, he hiraishined to the area where the Kyuubi was at. He needed to get the fox away from the village, and then seal it away.

"_I hope Kushina is okay right now."_

_**With Kushina at Safe House**_

Kushina right now was holding onto a small scroll with the kanji for 'learn' upon it. She was using some of her spilled blood to write a blood seal on the upper arm of Naruto. After she had completed this task, she sealed the scroll onto his arm. She proceeded to lay back down, trying to preserve as much of her strength as possible. She started talking to her son in a quiet voice.

"Naru-chan, I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling about today. This is just in case that neither your father nor I make it through the day. It will be your job to protect and teach and protect your sisters like every brother should do, do you understand -ttebane?"

Naruto, in his innocence, just giggled a bit and moved his head in a nodding motion almost as if he was assenting to the request.

"_Too bad we only have one copy of the scroll." _Kushina mused. _"But then again, we were not expecting three kids to come today. I guess life is just like that."_

_**Flashback End**_

_**With Minato **_

Minato was not having a good time. Upon returning after his brief scuffle with the masked man, he discovered that a great many of his shinobi were dead or dying, which just enraged him. Now, he was trying to dodge the swipes of the confused yet angry kitsune.

When he finally got near the Kyuubi, he jumped towards his head, narrowly dodging a swipe aimed to rend him in two. He took a deep breath, gathered his chakra, and prepared to use his famed space-time jutsu. When the jutsu activated and he felt him and the fox being pulled towards the destination, he only had one though running through his head.

"_I hope Kushina-hime doesn't rip me apart for this"_

_**Clearing near the Safe House **_

As Kushina was about to doze off, she heard a crash coming from the outside. Just as she was going to summon her strength to find the source of that sound, her beloved husband came back into the house. Slightly relieved, she started to questions him.

"Minato-kun, what was that sound? And why do you look like you just did something stupid?"

Minato just gave a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, Kushi-chan, but I needed help in getting rid of the Kyuubi, so I brought it here."

As Minato finished this statement, he felt a great killing intent (KI) hit him. As he was cowering, he felt the KI rein itself in. Just as he was about to release a sigh of relief, he heard something that made his blood freeze.

"Minato-kun, let me get this straight. You brought the dreaded Kyuubi no Kitsune, one of the most dangerous entities in this land near our recently born children who could be killed easily by that overgrown furball. Did I get all of that right?" Kushina said in a voice that was way too sweet to be sincere.

Minato, now scared for his life, stuttered "H-h-hai."

Kushina threw him an overly sweet smile and said "I will beat the crap out of you later for endangering our children. Right now, we need to deal with that oversized carpet rug."

Minato paled a bit, but just retorted, "I can seal the Kyuubi away, but I need a newborn baby to seal it away into. Anyone who is older than that would have their chakra coils explode from all the extra stress."

"I know that Minato-kun, but where are we going to get a..." Kushina trailed off, and a sudden look of horror crossed her face as she realized what her blonde husband was trying to imply.

"No, no, just no Minato-kun! I will not condemn one of our children to the life of being a jinchuuriki! I know how it feels to be alone, and that was when no one knew that I was a jinchuuriki! Let me drag the fox back into myself so that I can die with it! That will delay the Kyuubi for some time, enough time for you to find some way to defeat the Kyuubi when it comes back!"

Minato, who had somehow managed to keep a calm mind throughout this night, finally snapped when his wife started to yell at him.

"Do you think I want this? I have an idea that could save your life, and if I am right, preserve mine! Now let me explain my plan before that giant fox manages to regain its bearings!"

Properly admonished, Kushina just closed her mouth and gave her husband a look of affirmation.

"A week ago, I ran into a seal that could contain energy constructs like the Kyuubi. The catch is that I will need to split the Kyuubi into its three component parts-the yang chakra, the yin chakra, and the soul. I will save your life by resealing the yang chakra into you, which is known to be the most troublesome. You have experience dealing with the Kyuubi, so you would be the most logical choice for this part."

Noting that his wife had not blown up at him yet, he continued onward with his plan.

"The yin chakra would have to go into a newborn. I am choosing Narumi for this. Yin is the calmer and more controllable side, so she should be alright with this. Finally the soul. This should be the easiest to contain because it will have no power. I have to choose a newborn of the same gender for this one, which means that the soul will go into Hikari. Luckily, Naruto will not need to deal with any of this."

Kushina, after reviewing the plan, had to admit that not only was it sensible, but it was also practical. She gave a small nod, and summoned her iconic chains to wrap up the Kyuubi as it started to regain its bearings. Minato, not wasting the opportunity that his wife opened up for him, started to inscribe the required seals on the ground, leaving three circles of seals open.

Kushina knelt down in the first circle and placed Narumi in the second circle, while Hikari was placed in the third by Minato. The famed blonde ran through several hundred hand seals, and jumped up to the face of the restrained fox. With a hint of victory in his voice, he intoned the name of the seal that would spell the eternal defeat of the blasted fox.

"**Fuinjutsu: Kihon Tekina Kaitai"**

With this action, the fox started to fall apart into three pieces. The enraged beast gave a roar of defiance as it tried to resist the change, but to no avail. A bright red stream of energy started to coalesce around Kushina, entering her body. a similar yet darker shade of red did the same for Narumi, while a small red light entered the youngest of the three.

Just as Minato and Kushina were going to celebrate in their exhausted state, they heard a slight tearing sound emanate from behind them. When they turned around to investigate the source of the sound, they froze and their skin paled.

What Minato forgot about splitting energy of the size of Kyuubi was that nature would suffer because of it. The giant removal of energy from the Kyuubi and subsequent tearing of that energy put a great toll on the space-time barrier, which finally caused a tear. The thing that caused them to panic though was that the tear was right next to Naruto.

Minato wanted nothing more than to flash to his son and save him, but he knew that doing that while the space-time barrier was already stressed could make things worse. He and is wife could do nothing as their only son was sucked into the tear, with the tear stabilizing and disappearing soon after.

Kushina and Minato collapsed to their knees, knowing that they had just lost their son, and that he was most likely dead. Kushina buried her face into her hands and wept, while Minato just pounded the ground with his fist. The two daughters of the couple were still in their respective circle sound asleep, unaware that they had just lost their brother.

As Kushina was crying, Minato finally managed to pull himself together somewhat. Even though he was still crying, he managed to choke out a sentence.

"The village...the village deserves to know what happened...and they deserve to know who we had lost because of this."

Minato walked over to his still-weeping wife and wrapped his arms around her, trying to console her in any way possible.

Despite all the horror that had occurred that day, one good thing had happened. This splitting of chakra was irreparable, meaning that the Kyuubi would never again become whole. This, in turn, meant that the plan of Madara Uchiha to revive the Juubi was permanently destroyed. A lot may have been lost, but the rewards were ever greater.

_**Outside of Staff - Claymore Universe**_

A man dressed from head to toe in black was staring down at a baby. Next to him was the current number 13 of the organization, Joan.

The man, giving to noticeable expression of emotion, turned towards his companion. "So, what can you tell me about this baby, 13?"

The silver-eyed sword wielder looked back at her handler, surprise evident on her face. "This should not be possible. This baby has some form of energy flowing through his body. It does not seem to be as powerful or as dense as yoki, but it is more flexible. This cannot possibly be right, I need to go and check in with my superiors"

She turned around and was about to leave, but a black glove stopped her departure. Looking up, she received an answer. "Normally I would agree with you, but you are my second opinion, and a much better sensor than my first. Let's go, Staff awaits."

The handler reached down and picked up the baby, knowing that his boss would be interested in this.

_**At Staff**_

Rimuto, the aging leader of the organization, steepled his hands if front of his face and looked over to his subordinate. It was a testament to his experience that he was not freaking out over the news he just received, and the request that was put forth.

"So, you want to do what with this infant, Dae?"

The now named Dae looked at his boss, with a slight manic expression in his eyes. "This baby has a lot of potential, and I can just feel it. Never mind the extra energy source. The fact that he was able to stay in the presence of a claymore without any reaction is a clear indicator of what he can become.

"Dae, you are our top scientist. I will allow you to go through with this. I just have one question though. Considering how you were ranting about this infants potential, I know you are not going to use regular yoma flesh. Tell me, whose do you have in mind?"

Dae smirked at the intelligence of his immediate superior. His smirk grew a little devious as he said, "over the years since his defection, we have painstakingly managed to scrape together enough flesh and blood of the Silver King, Isley for one transplant. Usually, a candidate cannot take the sheer power of an Awakened Being's flesh, much less an Abyssal One's, but I have a good feeling about this boy."

Rimuto nodded and looked up at Dae. He asked, "And what of number 10 and number 13?"

Dae's devious smirk never left his face and without a beat said, "Well, we can't have an information leak, now can we? Besides I think that there are a couple of warriors that deserve a promotion."

Taking Rimuto's silence as one of affirmation, Dae left the office and headed into his laboratory, located deep within the earth. He headed to a small preservative container that he had, labelled with the words 'Silver King-Isley'. He opened the lid, and upon completion of draining the fluid, placed the flesh upon the baby. Reaching for a vial, he repeated the same process for the blood. The flesh and blood was immediately absorbed into the baby, leaving no sign of what had just happened behind.

Dae raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Huh, no patch of rotten flesh huh? Come young one, you will be our weapon in the war against the Abyssals." He left the laboratory with the baby in hand, walking towards an empty room. He knew enough to raise a baby, and he planned none else other than the boy's trainers to have access to the baby.

The dawn of a new warrior was fast approaching, and it was a warrior that would surpass in power all of his predecessors.

**Whew, finally finished. It took some re-writing, but I finally solved my dilemma of whether Kushina and Minato would live or die. I added another child, and Minato and Kushina would live, but the youngest would be disliked by Konoha for hosting the soul and for one other reason. Don't worry, it will not be cliche in the least.**

**Since I first started writing this with only two children, please PM me if you notice any problems. **

**Also, give me feedback on how the story is going. I want to know what you all think of this story compared to the last. **

**Also, I am sorry for you people who dislike this, but Naruto will be extremely powerful in this story. At the peak of his power, he will only be equaled by Priscilla. When he goes off to the Elemental Nations, only the Abyssals and Priscilla will be able to match of beat him. **

**Also, I have opened the poll of who Naruto will be paired with in this story. I will try and keep the poll open for at least a week, or whenever the next chapter comes out, whichever comes first. The results of this poll will have a large impact on this story. **

**Till the next chapter then. **


	2. Chapter 1

**Wow, I was not expecting the voter turnout that I received for the poll. I wish I could have more reviewers because I honestly want to know what they think of my story. Even a simple 'good job' or 'good start' would suffice. It doesn't take too long people. Remember, I won't know what you are thinking if you do not tell me!**

**Here are our poll results:**

**Hikari: 34**

**Fem. Kyuubi: 14**

**Well, it looks like Hikari won. By a lot. I actually thought that it would be closer than this, but it seems that Hikari got more than twice the votes Fem. Kyuubi received. So the pairing will be:**

**Naruto x Hikari! **

**One thing that I forgot to mention in the last chapter was now Naruto had the generic blond almost white hair of a claymore and silver eyes.**

**So, without further ado, here is the next chapter. Sit tight and enjoy, but don't forget to review!**

Hell.

It was hell.

There was nothing else that could describe what Naruto had to go through when he was put through his paces in training. Despite his astounding regenerative abilities considering his strength and lack of specialization, Naruto always ended training on the ground in pain, usually in a puddle of his own blood.

Usually when a Claymore goes through training, they have their fellow trainees to help them through emotionally. The fact that Naruto was alone and isolated most of the time coupled with the fact that his training was several orders more inane than the generic training only served to make Naruto a cold, stoic, and untrusting person.

Gone was the innocence that clung to a child for many years, even into their adulthood. Gone was the smile that used to lit up his face when someone came to visit him, even if it was the trainers. Gone was the boy who wore his emotions of his sleeve. All that remained was a cold, hardened warrior. The frightening part was that the boy had only experienced six years of life.

They had made sure to break him of any hesitations of taking a life when he was younger. Since they had begun his training at the age of three, Naruto had been molded to become the ultimate weapon. Starting at the age of five, they would start bringing in yoma for Naruto to kill as training, and to make sure that he would not freeze up when first confronting a yoma.

Right now, he was resting after one of his most brutal training sessions to date. His regular trainer was absent today, so they though sending in a new trainer just for the day would be alright. The problem was that this trainer pushed him further than any had before, and he ended up with himself nearly bisected at the waist. The only thing holding him together at that point was his spine. He eventually regenerated the ghastly wound, but fell unconscious due to yoki depletion. When he woke up, the trainer was gone.

After he felt that he could move around without too much pain, Naruto got up out of his puddle of blood and went to his room that was situated in an alcove on the side of his training room. He did not know much of the outside world. What he knew of it was second-hand knowledge that he got from the books that he was given.

His entire world was within the four walls of the room he slept and trained in. Every morning, he woke up early and prepared himself for the appearance of his trainer, but he still remembered the days that he was forcefully dragged out of bed at some ungodly hour. After a thorough beat down masquerading as training, he would nurse his wounds. He would eat if he got hungry. The rest of the day until he went to sleep was spent doing the only thing he could do-brood.

"_So this is my purpose in life. I am to take on the harshest of conditions in life so that I can do what others cannot. It may not be the best life, but it is my life, and I can live with that."_

Despite thinking this, Naruto found it hollow, as if it was hard to believe or accept. He liked the power that he was gaining, and he knew he was getting stronger each day, but what was the point? He had to purpose other than killing yoma. Even then, he did not have the drive that his fellow warriors had to fight and kill others for the sake of themselves and their loved ones, both dead and alive. He had nothing.

He was alone.

With that thought, he nodded off, preparing himself mentally for the cycle that would continue tomorrow, and for many years to come. What he did not know, however, was tonight was the night that he would meet someone that would grow on him. He would meet someone who would change his life, as well as give him a reason to live.

_**Dream**_

When Naruto opened his eyes, he noticed that he was not in his bed, or even in his training ground. he slowly climbed to his feet, noting that the soreness that was almost constantly present was gone. He looked around, taking in the sight of his surroundings.

"_Strange, if I am correct, those are pipes lining the walls. That, coupled with the fact that I am knee deep in water, probably means that I am in one of those waste transporters called a sewer."_

Looking up at the pipes, he deduced that there were two types lining the ceiling. The first was a single decent sized red pipe, and the other was a multitude of extremely thin blue pipes. Unlike the red pipe, the blue pipes seemed to be in poor condition, and they were leaking a bit.

Having nothing better to do, Naruto turned in the direction that the red pipe was heading, and started to follow the pipe. He went through a series of twists and turns all the while pondering why he was here and why the sewer was this complicated.

"_I may never have been in a sewer before, but from my readings a sewer should not be this complicated. This is no ordinary sewer. I best be n my guard."_

Treading with more caution than before, Naruto kept forcing himself through the knee deep water to reach some sort of destination. Soon after, a sound broke upon his ears that did not seem to fit in the sounds of a sewer.

He heard the sounds of a little girl crying.

Wading through the waters with more purpose, he zeroed in on the source of the cries. He did not know why he was doing this. It just seemed almost instinctual to go and find the source of that sound. There was just something intrinsically _wrong _with the weeping sounds to Naruto, and he wanted, no need to find out what was wrong with the little girl.

When he reached the source of the sound, the sight that greeted him would have given pause to any lesser or more cautious man. A little girl, not much older than he was biologically, was sitting on the ground up to her waist in water, crying into her hands. The strange part was that there was a gigantic cage looming behind her that emanated a dark feeling. For some reason, the girl did not notice what was behind her.

The girl, Naruto had to admit, was a beauty. Despite her young age and Naruto's lack of interaction with the fairer sex, he knew who he was looking at would grow to be a stunning figure. She had sun-kissed blonde hair that fell to her mid-back, and a slight tan that showed that she spent at least some time outdoors. The only thing marring the beauty of the child was the tears running down her cheeks and falling into her lap.

Due to the weeping, the girl did not sense him as he approached her. Even as he approached her, he felt a sense of pain in his chest. He brought his hand to his torso, and clutched his hand right over where the pain was.

"_What is this pain? I just look at this girl and she is able to hurt me in a way that no one else had ever managed before. Despite this, I can tell that she is human. How is she able to get this reaction out of me?"_

When he had finally reached the kneeling form of the girl, he knelt down. Following his instincts, he wrapped his arms around the girl. For some reason that he could not comprehend, this caused the girl to start to calm down. Once she was done shedding tears she tensed her muscles, an action that did not go unnoticed by the male blonde.

When she looked up at the person who was comforting her, violet orbs met silver ones. Despite their cold look, she found comfort in those eyes. Once she had snapped out of her stupor, she asked the one question that was at the forefront of her mind.

"Wh-Who are you?"

Naruto, his eyes still locked onto those of the person in his arms, gave a rather complicated reply. "Who I am is immaterial. If you seek my name, then you will need to search elsewhere since names hold power. The question is who are you, and how did you bring me here, and why were you crying"

The girl had been staring at him the entire time he gave his answer, but now she looked confused. It was evident that she did not understand much of what he had said. When the three questions at the end of his statement finally registered in her mind, she gave a big smile, one that was obviously fake.

"Hi! My name is Hikari Uzumaki-Namikaze! I have no idea how you got here, and what do mean by crying? I wasn't crying!"

Her voice got louder at the end of her introduction, as if increasing the volume of her voice would serve to convince her fellow blonde. Naruto just stared at her as if he was analyzing her, and he realized that today something special, and more importantly different, had happened today. It was the first time that Naruto had felt a positive emotion, the feeling of elation.

_**Earlier that day - Konoha**_

Hikari Uzumaki-Namikaze was not a happy five year old girl. When she and her twin sister had been announced as the saviors of Konoha, many people adored them, some almost to the point of worship. Sure, there were some who feared or even hated her for housing the soul of the beast that nearly annihilated the village, but that was a small minority. All in all, it looked like she and her sister would have a good life and grow to become powerful kunoichi.

This all had changed a year ago when she and her sister had tried to unlock their chakra.

Her sister, Narumi, had gone first, and had no problems. When she had unlocked her chakra, it was noted that hers was slightly more dense than regular chakra, and that she had the reserves of a regular academy student. This was quite the accomplishment considering that she was only four years old.

The problem had arisen when she had tried to unlock her own chakra.

When she tried to unlock her own chakra, nothing had happened. She tried multiple times, each time failing. When she had given one final attempt, she felt energy start to flow through her. She was about to give a shout of joy, but then soon collapsed, feeling more tired than she had ever been before.

Hikari was rushed to the hospital by her worried parents, and the med-nin there had given her a checkup. The results they had gotten were astounding, and they were surprised that no one had detected the problem before. Once she had dug through the medical jargon, she realized what her problem was.

An underdeveloped chakra coils.

It seemed that during Kushina's pregnancy with the triplets, she had used the Kyuubi's yoki too much. Each time that she used the yoki, some of it flooded her womb. This yoki did not harm the children, but caused them to nurture a dependence on it, much like a drug.

Narumi was lucky. She had the Kyuubi's yin yoki sealed within her, so that yoki served as the replacement that she needed in order to live a normal, healthy life.

Hikari, however, was not as lucky. Since she never had any yoki sealed into her, her chakra pathways were not able to stabilize nor develop correctly to form good coils. Because of this, the chakra levels of a descendent of an Uzumaki was not large.

It was smaller than a regular civilian.

Due to this, Hikari tired faster than other kids her age, and she was not quite as strong. She usually could only spend a few hours outside each day before coming in because she felt exhausted. She might have been young, but she did realize the importance of this.

Should would never be able to become a kunoichi.

The part that had angered Hikari was that her parents did not even try to solve her problem. Instead of trying to take some of the extra yoki from Kushina's seal and putting it in Hikari to fix her chakra coils, they just pushed her aside in favor of training Narumi. When they did pay attention to her, they treated her as if she was a fragile piece of glass almost about to break. They set her up with some textbooks to study so that she could get a job when she was older, but that was it. They offered no other help or support other than that.

The villagers were even worse. When they had learned that she would not be able to utilize chakra, they left her. All the praises disappeared, and people became apprehensive of her. She could hear their mutterings as she walked through the streets of Konoha.

"Look, there is the failure..."

"I feel sorry for her family, such powerful parents produced such a weak child..."

"She is a disgrace to the Hokage's family. They should kick her out if they know what is good for them..."

"A child of a kage unable to become a shinobi? Preposterous! They should have put her out of her misery..."

"I don't know about you, but I am keeping my kids away from her. I don't want my kids to catch her problem..."

Hikari never had any noticeable reaction to these barbs on the outside, but on the inside, it was a different story. She was a mess. She had no friends, and no one wanted to play with her in fear of catching her 'disease' or because they thought that she would not able to handle it. She started to lament to herself.

"_This is horrible! No one treats me as a person! The villagers avoid me like the plague, the shinobi treat me as a lost cause, and my parents act like I will break at any second! Why can't anyone like me for who I am? Why am I so alone?"_

And alone she was. No one wanted to befriend her, and the ones that did Hikari saw through. They, especially the men, just wanted to use her to get closer to the Hokage and his family. Why wouldn't they? There was the husband who annihilated entire squads of Iwa nin in a blink of an eye, there was the wife who could restrain and bijuu and whose sealing expertise was unmatched, and then there was the daughter who was projected to become one of the greatest shinobi that Konoha had ever produced. No one would care about her.

When the mutterings had finally ended, something inside Hikari had just snapped. For the first time in her public life, tears started to fall from her eyes, carving paths in her cheeks as they dripped down to her jaw. She rushed home as quickly as her weak body would allow her, and ran through the gates. She wanted to go to her parents for comfort, so she headed to the training grounds in the back.

When she got there, she gritted her teeth in anger and jealousy. Narumi could been seen jumping up and down with her fist thrust into the air, celebrating her achievement of finishing the leaf balancing exercise. Hikari crept forward to listen in to what they were saying. Sometimes it paid to have a chakra signature that was nigh undetectable.

A woman with red locks of hair going down to her ankles was seen hugging a smaller carbon copy of herself. A taller spiky-haired blonde man could be seen next to her with a hand on the shoulder of her daughter, a smile filled with fatherly pride stretched on his face. The woman took the initiative to talk first.

"Good job Narumi, your father and I are so proud of you! You're only five years old, yet you have already down the leaf balancing exercise! You're going to be a great kunoichi someday -ttebane!"

Her daughter, Narumi, beamed at Kushina. Nothing made her as happy as receiving praise from her mother, except receiving praise from her father. "Thanks kaa-chan! You better look out, I'll soon be a better kunoichi than you ever were!"

The man, now known to be Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage, took the chance to give her praise to her daughter. "Well, don't get too far yet. You are still a long way from matching your mother, but you are getting there! I wouldn't want my daughter getting hurt. It's a cold and dark world out there."

When Hikari heard this, she left. She could not longer take it. Her parents were ashamed of her, they were not proud of her, and they couldn't care less about what happened to her. They would not even help her get ready for a civilian life, and they did not care if she would be safe in it.

She bolted for her room and when she got there, she slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. She dived into bed and got into a comfortable position. Her head went into her hands, and she released sob after sob, tears flowing down her young face.

"_Its nots fair, why do I have to be the cursed one?...sob...Why do I have to be the one that has to be alone?...sob...Why can't anyone love me?..."_

Hikari just laid there, until her exhaustion proved too powerful and she fell asleep, tear trails still marring her face.

_**Hikari's Mindscape**_

When Hikari had come to, she was standing in water that came up to her mid thighs. She stopped crying as she looked around contemplating how she ended up in this situation.

"_How did I get here? Last that I remember, I was in my bed, crying."_

When she was reminded of her previous activity, she fell to the ground and burst into tears again. She had no idea of how long she was there, all she was aware of was her pain, the pain of being ignored, the pain of being hated, the pain of being alone. Just as she was going to continue wailing, she felt a pair of arms encircle her.

She felt the warmth that the arms exuded, and she could not help but calm down. She could not help but remember that she did not have this feeling of warmth or security for a long time. Her parents had stopped hugging and tucking her into bed a long time ago, and she had sorely missed it.

After she had calmed down, she realized the situation that she was in. She was in an unidentified location, and she was effectively at the mercy of someone that she did not know. This caused her to unconsciously tense her muscles, as her fight or flight response kicked in. She took the risk and looked up at the person who had comforted her. When she had registered what she had saw, she was at a loss for words.

She had to admit, the boy that she saw was _beautiful. _He was not handsome like her father, but he seemed to have an unnatural beauty that hung around him that seemed to mark him as someone who was not human. He had a pale skin tone, not one that was a sickly pale, but one that was more of a porcelain color. His hair was the color of straw that was left out in the sun too long. Usually, this would be a weird combination, but it just seemed so right on this boy.

The thing that drew most of her attention, however, was his eyes. They were a silver color, and in this light, it made them seem almost terrifying to most people. To Hikari though, they just served to comfort her. It was almost as if an angel had come to comfort her, considering his perfect beauty.

After she had finished ogling the newcomer, she decided to ask his the question that burned with curiosity. Emotionally spent, she did not have enough energy at the time to put up her mask. Instead she managed to stutter out a question in an exhausted but inquisitive voice.

"Wh-who are you?"

The man just kept looking at her, his silver eyes boring into her violet ones. After some time, he deigned to give her an answer.

"Who I am is immaterial. If you seek my name, then you will need to search elsewhere since names hold power. The question is who are you, and how did you bring me here, and why were you crying"

Now that answer only served to confused her, and it had the side effect of making her relax. What did half of those words even mean? She might have an advanced intellect for kids her age, but that did not mean that she could understand half the big words that he had used. It was then that the three questions that he asked registered in her mind. Gathering together a bit of the energy that she had left, she plastered a big grin on her face, and gave her answer.

"Hi! My name is Hikari Uzumaki-Namikaze! I have no idea how you got here, and what do mean by crying? I wasn't crying!"

She purposely made her voice become louder at the end of the statement, as if that would convince the blonde that what she was saying was the truth. Just when she thought that she had him convinced, the blonde across from Hikari asked her a question that not only shocked her, but gave her a little bit of hope, not that she realized it.

"Why? Why do you bury your feelings like that? It is obvious that you are not happy, yet you put a smile on your face. So I ask you once again. Why do you smile when you are sad? I thought that you only smiled when you were happy.?"

This question shocked Hikari. No one before had ever seen through her mask, whether it was because they were incapable of doing so or because they did not look deep enough. Despite this though, the wounds of loneliness was too deep, and she tried to deny it. Still maintaining the smile, she rebuffed what her fellow blonde had said.

"What are you talking about? I am not sad! If I was sad, I would be crying right now! Do you see any tears on my face!"

The boy did not give a visible reaction, but it seemed like that not because he was experienced in dealing with these kinds of situations, but because he did not know what to do. All the people he dealt with in his life leading up to this moment had all been adults. He did not know how to interact with a young girl like the one in his arms.

Taking a leap of faith, he started to give his reasoning.

"I walked in here and I saw that you were shedding tears, and I felt the inexplicable compulsion to comfort you. I can tell that you have no idea how I got here, nor where we are, and I can tell that you are lying about your sadness. Please, tell me what is bothering you."

Hikari could not understand why this boy was so pushy about the subject. Could he not see that she wished to be alone so that she could mope? Despite the unwanted urging of the unknown boy, Hikari was actually touched. In less than five minutes, this strange boy had shown more caring and worry for her sake than her parents had since they discovered Hikari's condition.

Naruto did not understand why he was this pushy about the subject either. Usually, he would just ignore her after the first time the girl rejected him, but he could not help but stay. He, for some reason, felt compelled to help the young girl, even if he did not know her. It was strange. He was going through a range of emotions that he did not think he could feel.

Hikari, despite being touched, finally snapped at her companion.

"Fine, do you want to know what the problem is? I have no friends, the villagers stay away from me, everyone else pities me, and my _parents_ only have eyes for my older sister, and they wouldn't even notice if I had died! All this happened because I cannot use chakra like a regular shinobi could! What do you know of suffering"

Naruto took in everything that was said by his fellow blonde, and he noticed the venom impugned in the word 'parents' when she had said it. So she did not have much love for those people she called mother and father, eh? The last part made his eyebrow twitch. It was a testament to his emotion control that he did not lash out at the girl in front of him in a fit of rage.

"I know not of how you feel, considering that I have never had what you call parents, nor have I had much contact with a large number of people. However, I do know of suffering. Every morning, I have to force myself out of bed. If I do not do this, someone will drag me out of bed, sometimes with a sword. After this, they would constantly beat me without a shred of remorse, and somehow this counts as training. After that, I would try to heal my wounds as I lie in a puddle of my blood. I would be left alone for the rest of the day, and I would be given a book to read if they felt generous. If they do not, I will be forced to think, the only thing left for me to do. Do you still believe that I have no suffered, child?"

Naruto managed to say all of this in a cold tone, and it was a miracle that he was able to say all of that with a straight face without having his voice crack whatsoever during the entirety of the tirade. Hikari, on the other hand, was the opposite. Her eyes got progressively larger and her mouth dropped open. One of her hands drifted slowly upwards to cover her mouth in horror. She felt tears start to prick the edges of her eyes.

"I-I don't know wh-what to say. I thought-"

She was cut off as the boy sitting in front of her started to talk.

"I don't want you to say anything, nor do I want your pity. I want you to learn that someone who suffered more than you managed to pull through without cracking. I want you to grow stronger from this. Can you do that for me?"

If anyone else had said something like this to Hikari, she probably would have yelled at them, but Naruto was not anybody. He had suffered more than she had, but she could tell that he was strong. She was starting to get hopeful, until a thought crossed her head that made her hopes crash and burn.

"But how am I supposed to get stronger? I could always get stronger mentally, but how about physically? I will always be weaker than everyone else. That is my curse, and there is nothing that will ever change it."

She looked at the boy-no man in front of her, and he gave her an analyzing stare. Gears could be seen whirling through his head as he came up with a plan.

"I have an idea. It is shaky at best, and there is a good possibility that it could fall through and that you could die. It will take about a couple of years to start, and several years after that to complete. I can offer you the chance to gain power. Imagine it! Power to show that you are not weak. Power to prove your parents wrong! Power to show that wretched village that you live in that you mean something. Tell me, would you accept this?

Hikari was overjoyed with the prospect of becoming strong, but she was not stupid.

"What's the catch. This deal is too good to be true. There is no way that you would just be willing to give me this power. There is no way that you would do this for no reason. Why do you offer me this?"

Naruto felt something warm because of her intelligence. He knew that this was the right choice.

"Well, you would have to lose a good deal of your genetic relations to your parents, and you would lose part of your humanity. I also want to look through your memories. For my reason, like I said earlier, I feel compelled to help you. Are you okay with this?"

Before today, Hikari would have said no and left the place. After hearing what her parents had said earlier, however, she did not care if she lost her connection to them. To her, they were just people that she roomed with, and if she was truthful to herself, she was happy that she not longer had to call Minato and Kushina tou-san and kaa-san.

"Alright, it is a deal. What do I do first?"

"Just wait. There is nothing that you can do right now. If I am correct, the place that we are in is called a mindscape, and currently, both of our minds are connected for some reason. I will give you what you need to grow powerful once I find a way to get to where you are. Good-bye for now."

Hikari gave a smile. Unlike her smiles from earlier, this one was genuine, and it was obvious that she was truly happy and hopeful. "Good-bye. Oh! Before I forget, what should I call you?"

Naruto could not resist as his lips quirked upward into a very tiny smile. That grin of hers was just so infectious. "Call me Naruto. That is my name." With that, Naruto turned around to depart to his side of the joined mindscape, ready to leave.

Hikari nodded in affirmation, and yelled out after the retreating figure. "Bye Naruto-kun! See you soon!"

Naruto gave no reply other than raising his hand in the air and giving a small wave. Just after this action was done, he disappeared. Hikari smiled, and disappeared as well from her mindscape.

Two things had happened when the two of them had been conversing. The first, and the one that neither of them had noticed, was the giant red eye that had opened momentarily behind them, but did not react other than closing. The other thing that happened was the ice coffin that had for so long surrounded Naruto's heart, had cracked ever so slightly.

_**With Hikari - Awake**_

Hikari, now awake, could not resist but give a light bout of laughter. The novelty of the situation had finally hit her. She had a _friend. _It was not like one of those hero worshippers that would not quit following her around when she was younger, but an honest friend. She was about to release a squeal when she was deflated by the sound of her mother calling up the stairs to get her down for dinner.

"Hikari-chan, come downstairs for dinner! Narumi is getting impatient, and she needs her sleep! You know how much a growing kunoichi needs her sleep!"

At this, Hikari's thoughts became more cynical.

"_No kaa-san, I do not know how much a growing kunoichi needs sleep, especially considering that I cannot become one. The fact that you won't even teach me a bit of fuinjutsu just shows that you do not care much about why. Also, why is it always about Narumi? Grr..."_

Despite this, Hikari could not help but give a dark smile, a smile that did not belong on the face of a normal five year old. She would get stronger even if it killed her, and she would surpass her sister and show her parents that she was worth something.

_**With Naruto**_

"_Well, that was interesting if I say so myself. I should probably get back to sleep, I will need my energy for tomorrow. _

He was just about to return to his sleep when he became distracted by a small poof of smoke. When the small cloud disappeared, he noticed that the title of the book.

"_Fuinjutsu for Dummies, eh? Well, if I remember from Hikari's memories, fuinjutsu was the art of sealing, and it had an unlimited number of applications, and the power of the seal is dependent upon the density of energy channeled through it. From what I have seen, yoki is far more dense than chakra, making it the perfect tool for these techniques. This is going to be an interesting couple of years, I am sure of it."_

Naruto cracked open the book and began reading it from page one. Maybe he could learn how to make a storage tattoo so that no one found his book. It would do no good if the handlers found this. As he read, an uncharacteristic though formed in his mind.

"_I will get stronger Hikari, I will get stronger so that you and I will not have to suffer alone anymore. I don't know what it is about you, but you make me feel strangely happy, and I want to be around you more often."_

**And finished. Whew! I just sat down and typed this all in one sitting. It took me a couple of hours to finish this, and I feel for those authors who type 10,000 or even 20,000 word chapters. This is my longest chapter to date, yet it leaves me feeling completely exhausted! The chapter itself is less than 6,000 words long!**

**I feel that the end of this chapter is more rushed than i wanted it to be. Naruto may seem a little social and emotional considering that he is meant to be the ultimate super weapon, but there was still a time when Naruto had emotions, and his actions in the latter part of the chapter draws upon those experiences to formulate his actions. **

**If anyone has any questions, feel free to PM them to me. I will try and answer them without spoiling any of the future plot. **

**I also have a new poll up on my profile. Unlike the last one this one has to do with both this story and my other one, Forsaken Legend. I want to know what you think of this story in comparison to that one. I need to know if my writing is going in the right direction. I feel that is is, but it doesn't hurt to have other opinions. That poll will stay up until the release of chapter 3. **

**Adiós! **

**Last Edit: March 2, 2014**


	3. Chapter 2

**Wow, I was impressed when I posted the last chapter. I got 20 reviews within a few hours of posting that chapter. I was so surprised that I had to log out and log back in to make sure that what I was seeing was correct. **

**Here is the next installment of **_**Blurred Lines, **_**at least for those who care. **

Blood splattered against the visage of a blonde framed face of a young boy. The child did not even flinch as the purple life-giving liquid splashed against his face, nor did he make any motion to clean it off. The bisected bodies of eight yoma could be seen lying around the upright figure. One yoma for each year that the warrior had been in existence.

Naruto finally made the first sign of life since the end of the battle. He flicked his wrist, allowing the blood that had stained the length of his blade to be flung off. He placed the the claymore upon his back. This action was soon copied with the assistance of two shorter blades which were promptly sheathed at his thighs.

This was one of the things that set him apart from the other warriors of the organization. While every other warrior only carried a giant claymore as a weapon, the memories that Naruto had seen from Hikari had left their impression on him. He realized that in the event he was separated from his great sword, his lack of a cutting weapon would lead to his death. His skills in hand-to-hand combat, despite being extraordinary, would not cut it against any higher level yoma that he would face, especially those who could turn virtually any part of there body into an instrument of death.

After seeing the memories of Hikari, Naruto did not stay idle. Despite being inferior in terms of raw power, the skills that Naruto saw demonstrated in those memories did impress him. Walking on walls? Walking on water? Hell, controlling the elements? He had never even considered any of those before. With these goals in mind, Naruto set out to replicate these feats with yoki in secret, away from the prying eyes of the society. He usually trained in these techniques when he was away from the watchful eye of the organization.

After he begun his training, he had hit a snag almost right away. Unlike the energy those shinobi used, chakra, yoki was not meant to be manipulated at easily. While the chakra users had said energy flowing through there bodies constantly, yoki tended to bubble beneath the surface until it needed to be used, especially for physical enhancements.

Naruto solved this problem by using one of his favorite abilities that were gifted to him by his yoki. Using his natural ability to shape shift, the young boy created paths for his yoki to flow through his body. Through sheer hard work and determination, he managed to get it to a level where the yoki would flow unconsciously. This also ha the side effect of improving his control drastically, which in turned allowed him to train without his yoki. This in turn would give a greater boost to his physical abilities when he chose to augment them with yoki, particularly flexibility and speed.

Along with the boost to his control and physical abilities, he discovered that his regenerative factor had skyrocketed. Due to his lack of specialization, he used to be able to regenerate most cuts, but limb loss would have taken a while. Now, he could regenerate entire limbs nearly instantaneously. It was a gift that had saved his life more than once when he had run into a group of yoma or the occasional awakened being.

To his slight excitement, he learned that the so-called demons of Hikari's world were attuned to a specific element. Considering that the beasts were pure yoki, he was confident that his yoki would be attuned to an element as well. It may take some time to arise, and it would take arduous training to access its full benefits, but he still could not get over the thrill of the idea of wielding an element.

This wasn't to say that he focused all on brawn and not subtlety. Given the type of person that he was, he could not help but be drawn in by the promise of fuinjutsu. According to Hikari, the humans of her world managed to seal away giants constructs of yoki into humans with no overly dramatic changes happening to the host. If seals could accomplish this, then there was no limit to to versatility of seals. After the first book had appeared that night two years ago, Naruto had torn through it with a fervor unmatched by any of his other pursuits. He seemed to have a natural talent of seals considering that he had unlocked the third book a scant few weeks ago. If he was correct, he was at the intermediate level of fuinjutsu. Considering that he did not have a formal education in said art or even a teacher, the progress he made was exceptional.

His harsh training yielded wonderful benefits, one of which he was utilizing right now. He was sitting in the middle of the lake with his legs crossed as he was meditating and eyes closed in concentration. This was the time that he used to think and right now his thoughts were drifting to the girl that had changed his life. A small smile graced his lips, a smile that would not have been present on the same child two years ago.

He could not suppress that smile even if he wanted to. That girl, Hikari, changed his life in a much greater way than she could hope to understand. Looking back, Naruto was forced to admit that he was headed in a downward spiral before he had met Hikari. Despite Hikari being in tears when he had first met her, she was all sunshine and smiles after that. He could not help but feel happy and relaxed in her presence, and feeling that no other being he had encountered managed to make him do. She was special, and he was not afraid to admit that.

The girl at first could not stand his cold personality, so she made it her mission to "take out the this lodged in your ass", as she put it. She would bother him to no end, trying and failing many times to get a reaction out of him. It did seem like a series of failures, but over time, Naruto had learned to relax. He expressed his emotions slightly more freely, and released a smile every now and then. Despite this additional dimension to his personality, he was only like this around Hikari. Everyone else would get the visage of a cold and merciless killer.

The thought of his closest friend sent a pulse of warmth through his body. It seemed to start at his heart and spread through his body until it ended at his extremities. The feeling left him both happy and worried. He felt happy for some reason that he could not explain, and he felt worried because he did not understand what was affecting him. He would have asked Hikari, but every time he planned of asking her about it, he was struck by apprehension and would quickly pick some other topic to talk about. So far, Hikari did not notice that anything was amiss, and Naruto was thankful for that.

As his most recent thought passed on, his beautiful face transformed as a small frown marred his visage. The warm feeling was different this time. Instead of just fading away like it usually did, it seemed like it was almost, collecting? A look of confusion now crossed his face. He located the area of the collection with his available senses, and realized that the warmth was collecting in his hands. Naruto opened his eyes to find out what was happening to him. When the blonde warrior saw what had occurred, even he could not stop his jaw from dropping.

In his hands were two masses of energy. Unlike regular yoki, however, the masses were made out of an element. He could not stop a grin from decorating his face, a grin that promised a lot of things, most of which were not good for those who chose to cross him.

He dispersed the elemental masses and he stood up, vowing to devote a lot of time to developing his elemental affinities. This could be his ace in the hole in the event that he faced a yoma that he could not beat. After all, who would expect a wave of black fire to come out of someone's hand? He checked to make sure that he was not missing anything as he set out to Staff. It would not do to arrive late and arouse the suspicions of the organization. The last thing he would need is a bunch of stooges from the organization following him around keeping tabs on him. He would no longer be able to continue in his special training if that had happened.

"_So, I don't have one element, but I have two. Wind and Fire, eh? Those two will make a deadly combination should I find a way to combine them. It will be an interesting project, at the very least."_

**Konoha**

When Hikari opened her eyes in the morning, she did something that seemed so foreign to her just two years ago. She smiled a giant megawatt smile, a smile that seemed to brighten the room. She was a happy young girl of seven years and she owed it all to the boy that she met that day two years past.

She was also very hopeful. Before she had met Naruto, her future seemed bleak. It seemed that she would never be better than her sister, whether it was in the eyes of her village or parents. If she was honest to herself, she even thought that she was less than Narumi. That all changed when her blonde savior gave her an opportunity to break her condition. She had not doubt that he would go through with what he promised. He did not seem to be the one to bluff, or promise something when he was doubtful in his ability to accomplish it.

Hikari lifted her shirt up and placed her hand on the seal that was located right over he heart. Carefully, she started to pump what little chakra that she could spare into the seal. When fatigue started to strike her, she stopped and braced herself against the wall. The jaded blonde raised her hand to her face, wiping the sweat that had gathered at her brow. She had been doing this every morning for the past year, since the day Naruto had set his plans to empower Hikari in motion. She still remembered that meeting, and the sheer joy and relief she felt because of it.

_**Flashback - One year ago**_

Hikari was walking the murky waters of her sewer mindscape again with a smile on her face. This was her time to be her true self, her time to drop the mask that the people forced on her. In here, she was not the weak, disabled child that Konoha portrayed her as. She was Hikari, a strong person spiritually and mentally, and if things went alright, physically too.

As she continued her walk, she was wondering where Naruto was. He told her that the next meeting would be the following night for her, adjusted for the time difference between there dimensions. Just as she was about to call out for her friend, she felt a tap on her shoulder. What came out of her mouth following this action was something that she was not proud of.

"Eep!"

When she realized what she had done, a deep scarlet blush spread across her face almost instantly, and she turned around. She saw the object of her thoughts and blushed an even deeper shade of red when she saw the faint twinkle of amusement in his eyes. Incensed, Hikari leapt at him, half hugging him and half beating him on the chest.

"Damn it Naruto-kun!" I told you to stop scaring me like that! You made nearly made me faint!"

Naruto couldn't hold it in any longer and released a small laugh. Much like the rest of him, the laugh was beautiful, sounding like a tinkling bell. This action in itself would have been considered downright strange two years ago, but spending many a night with Hikari taught him how to enjoy the small things in life, like laughing.

He started to talk, but found it difficult to keep the mirth out of his voice. "If I remember correctly, you did faint last time."

Hikari didn't say anything, but a soft, feminine growl could be heard emanating from her throat. Pouting, she decided to change the subject. "So, why did you ask for me to come here, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto went into his pocket and retrieved a piece of paper. The paper contained a complex seal design, and despite being an Uzumaki by blood, Hikari could not make heads or tails of the seal whatsoever.

After giving Hikari a moment to look at the seal, Naruto started to talk. "Remember when I promised to help you get powerful? Well this is the first step. In order for me to help you, I need to be able to meet you physically instead of in a mindscape. I won't unveil the details right now, but I will need you to charge this seal with the equivalent of what you call a jonin's level of chakra."

When Hikari heard this, her eyes expanded. "Are you insane Naruto-kun! I would kill myself trying to channel that much chakra! I barely have access to my chakra as it is! Even Narumi, who is the chakra battery in the family, couldn't spend that much chakra without fainting!"

After she had finished the tirade, Naruto picked up where he left off. "Anyways, as I was saying before I was interrupted, you will need to channel some of your excess chakra into this seal at the beginning of each day. This seal will act as a chakra storage device, and eventually you will accumulate the chakra that you will need. If my estimate is correct based on how much chakra you have right now, this will take approximately two years. At that point, I will fill you in on the rest of the plan."

When Naruto was done saying this, he noticed the tears that were traveling down Hikari's face. Greatly troubled, he questioned her about it.

"Hikari-chan, why do you shed those tears? I concluded that you would have been overjoyed at this news yet you are crying."

A giggle could be heard from Hikari. She wiped her eyes, and looked straight at Naruto with a true smile on her face.

"Naruto, it seems that there is still much for you to learn. These are not tears of sadness, but tears of joy and relief. I am happy that you are willing to go so far for me, and that you are asking for nothing in return. Why are you doing this for me? You will gain nothing out of it."

Naruto, for one of the rare times in his life, was confused. Why did he choose to help this girl? Why did he feel empathy for the girl, when he usually would turn his head away from the sob story? Unable to answer, he answered Hikari.

"I don't know why I am helping you. Something is telling me that I should help you, and the thought of leaving you to yourself fills my chest with unbearable pain."

Noticing the awkwardness of the situation, the blonde girl decided to change the subject. While thinking of a new topic to talk about, a thought hit her that seemed to be a flaw in Naruto's plan.

"Wait, this is a mindscape. How are you supposed to give me this seal?"

Naruto's smile widened slightly, and he gave a nod of approval. "I was wondering when you were going to ask me that. It is true. I am unable to give you this seal, but that does not stop me from leaving it here in your mind so that you could reference it whenever you need to. Just redraw it somewhere on your body that would be out of sight, as well as a place that not many people would look at."

Hikari, being the uncollected person that she is, couldn't help but yell out. "What, you actually expect me to do this correctly? What if I mess up? What if I hurt myself? What if the seal blows up? What if I draw the seal incorrectly? What if-"

The onslaught of questions were stopped by a single index figure placed on her lips. What Naruto said next made her feel proud, as well as warm.

"Don't worry. I have faith in you. You will not 'mess up' as you say because you are you, and you will always succeed when it comes to something this important."

Hikari stood there, trying her hardest to repress the blush that was threatening to stain her face, as well as control any possible stuttering that might have been caused by Naruto's compliment. People never talked to her like that, they never believed in her. The fact that it was her Naruto-kun that gave her the compliment made it all the much harder."

"_Wait, _my _Naruto-kun? Where did that come from?"_

Shaking her head to clear that errant thought, she summarized what Naruto had asked her to do.

"So, just two years of pumping chakra and I'm done?"

Naruto nodded in affirmation. Just as he was about to leave, he feels a pair of arms wrap around his waist. Suppressing the urge to rip of the objects obstructing his path, he tilted is head slightly so he could see Hikari standing behind him.

"Thank you Naruto-kun. I can't wait to see you next time."

For some reason, when she had hugged her fellow blonde and said this statement, Naruto felt a fluttering feeling in his stomach. This sent his mind into overdrive as he tried to analyze what was causing this reaction.

"_I can't be sick, the yoki in my body prevents me from falling sick. I'll need to check myself when I get back to my body. I can't be functioning any less than one hundred percent"_

Hikari sighed when he left. She cared for her friend deeply, and she wished that he would stop trying to close her out. She was his friend, damn it! Friends should not close friends out, right?

She left her mindscape as well so she could go to sleep. She needed as much rest as possible so that she would be able to channel the maximum amount of chakra into the seal.

_**End Flashback**_

The day following night she had received the seal, Hikari had meticulously painted in over her heart. Considering the angle that she was drawing at, she still had no idea how she had managed to draw it without messing up. Soon after the ink had tried, she had pushed into the seal the first of many charges of chakra.

It had taken a lot of hard work and a slight bit of pain, but it was worth it. According to Naruto in her last meeting with him, she was right on track and she would get to the amount of chakra required within another year.

Naruto. The thought of him brought a smile to her face. Thinking about him made her knees weak, and sometimes she would feel light headed. If she was a a normal girl, she would have asked her mother about these feelings that she had associated with Naruto, but she was not normal. She could already see what would happen. Her mother would start fretting over her thinking that her 'condition' was getting worse, and the murmurs of the villagers would get even worse.

That last tangent served to darken her mood, and her smile twisted downward into a frown. Before she could decide what she wanted to do that morning, she heard a call coming from the floor below her.

"Hikari-chan! Narumi-chan! Come downstairs! It's time for breakfast!"

Hikari was turned to her bedroom door and exited the room so that she could get downstairs quickly. Disabled or not, Kushina had a temper even for her, albeit one that had a slightly longer fuse. She did not want to see what she would do to her should she take too long. She shuddered. She still remembered the last time Minato was late for dinner. He had a good excuse, yet his screams of pains could still be heard from the other side of the house.

As she headed downstairs, she ran into her sister. When Narumi saw her, she shot Hikari a look of pity and then continued on downstairs.

This angered Hikari, but she managed to contain her emotions. Her non-physical training with Naruto taught her that acting on her emotions would only make things worse. Her sister might have never been a spoiled little princess, but her upbringing being taught that she would be the best of the best when she had finished growing up made her slightly arrogant. Despite this, Narumi still tried to show that she cared for her younger sister. It incensed her her older sister would look after her as if she needed to be taken care of, as if she could not fend for herself.

Despite the fact that Narumi was slightly arrogant, she did care for her little sister deeply, but she had trouble expressing it. She could tell that her younger sister didn't like her, and that she used to be slightly jealous of her because of all the attention she got from her parents and the fact that she would grow to be an exemplary ninja while she would not. This, for some strange reason, stopped about two years ago. Nowadays, Hikari treated Narumi as if she was an annoyance at best.

When she had gotten downstairs, her entire family was waiting for her. As she was sitting down at the table, she sensed that her family was giving her the customary daily 'pity glance'.

"_These idiots have already written me off. They don't want me to become a kunoichi, yet they won't even help me prepare for my adult life, even if it is going to be a civilian one."_

With these dark thoughts in her head, she quickly finished her breakfast before going going back to her room. She did not want to stay with her 'family' and get those looks, nor did she want to go into the village to face their rejection.

When she got to her room, she pulled out her journal to start writing. This was actually her way of dealing with her problems. This was also a course of action advised by Naruto. According to her benefactor, bottling up emotions was a very bad thing. He said that it could cause her to snap, or suffer from emotional instability when she needed to be as calm as possible, hinting that that would be important for the future. Flipping to a new page, she started to write, there was much she had to write, yet the day had hardly begun...

**With Minato and Kushina **

Kushina was standing in the kitchen with her husband worried about her younger daughter. They could tell that all the choices that they made for her as she was growing up was now coming back to hurt them. When the triplets were born, they lost there only son because of a mishap that they made in the sealing. Because of this, the both of them were adamant in making sure that they didn't lose their remaining children, be it normal or abnormal means.

This is why they had decided to start training their children early. They wanted both Narumi and Hikari to be as strong as possible before they became official genin. It was obvious that Narumi would be the stronger of the two eventually with access to the Kyuubi's vast yin yoki reserves despite the lack of control she would initially have over her own chakra. Everything seemed to be going fine until Hikari had collapsed. Minato and Kushina started to panic, and they immediately rushed their unconscious daughter to the hospital.

The results that they got from the med-nin at the hospital were horrifying. They learned that their daughter had underdeveloped chakra coils. While she would be able to channel chakra to a limited degree, she would never be able to do it at the level required to be a shinobi. To make it even worse, it was due to the lack of the Kyuubi's yoki that had HIkari had grown dependent on during her gestation period. She was suffering from withdrawal, so her coils never hardened because the energy that coursed through them were far less potent and dense than the former yoki.

The two parents could have tried to implant a few tails of the yang chakra from Kushina into Hikari in hopes of helping her, but they realized that she was too old now. While it could possibly work, there was a greater chance that Hikari could die. Since Minato and Kushina did not want to lose another child, they picked the option that would forever destroy a healthy relationship between parents and child.

They didn't want to get their daughter's hopes up until they ruthlessly crushed them, so the Hokage and his wife tried to break it to their daughter as gently as possible. The look that crossed Hikari's face had sent a stab of pain through the hearts of the two high-level shinobi. The young blonde looked absolutely crushed, and then she looked lost, as if she didn't know what to do with her life. Soon after, Hikari was discharged from the hospital.

A few weeks after that, Kushina had caught Hikari training in some kenjutsu stances from a scroll with a bokken. When Kushina saw this, she promptly scolded her daughter, took away her equipment, and sent her to her room. Kushina knew that her daughter wanted to be a bukijutsu and taijutsu specialist, but the low chakra levels in her body also affected her stamina. Instead of having the legendary Uzumaki stamina, she had the stamina similar to that of an untrained child. She love her daughter too much to let her go fight and be killed because she could not utilize chakra properly. Kushina knew that she was hurting her daughter, but she thought that it was for the best.

Ever since the redhead had stopped Hikari from learning and training, their relationship had degraded. It wasn't noticeable at first, but they first stopped spending time together, and then they stopped talking. Eventually, they barely even saw each other.

She wanted to have a strong relationship with Hikari, but she did not know where to start. She basically shoved her aside for her elder sister, and now she was paying for it. She wanted to march up to her daughter's room and talk to her like a real mother should, but she didn't know where to start. Sure, she knew how to act serious and like a mother, but that was the problem. It was all an act, an act to cover up how she truly was like. Her relationship with Narumi was strong, but that was more one of an older sibling or even best friend rather than a mother. All of this would not help with her youngest.

Hikari didn't outright say it, but Kushina could tell that she disliked her family. Kushina couldn't blame her, she would have hated her family if they did the same thing to her as she did to her daughter. Her daughter was distant to her, and she didn't know how to fix it.

Before she could continue brooding, she felt the warmth of her husband enclose her. It was obvious about what she was distraught about. She relaxed in his arms as he whispered sweet words into her ears.

"Don't worry Kushi-chan, we will bring her back. She needs to know that we care for her, and that being a kunoichi is not the right line of work for her."

Kushina nodded into Minato's chest as he started to rub her back. She would get her daughter to come back, or she would die trying.

**With Hikari**

Hikari continued to write in her journal. After she had finished penning her final thought, she closed the book, and locked it with the blood seal that was on the front cover. The little girl was quite thankful that she got those fuinjutsu lessons from Naruto. Seals were extremely powerful, and they would maintain her privacy when her parents inevitably became worried for her and thought that it was in her best interest if they kept tabs on her.

Hikari smiled. One more year until she could become strong. One more year until she could finally lose the blood that she shared with the people that she lived with. One more year until she could finally meet Naruto in the flesh, to hold him, to hug him, to convince herself that there was actually one person who cared for her.

He might not know it, but he was the one who saved her from her darkness. Hikari did not know how much longer she could have gone on being treated the way she was without snapping, but she did know that she had been approaching the final fall. Naruto pulled her back from that, and gave her a reason to live.

The young blonde girl did not know what to think of her blonde savior. She sometimes thought of him as a father, other times as an older brother, and most often as something that for some reason made her body heat up slightly and caused her breathing to quicken in pace.

A contemplating look crossed the face of the young child. For now, these thoughts and feelings did not matter. She had an entire year to sort out her feelings for Naruto.

**Whew, done with the chapter. I know that this chapter is not nearly as good as the last two, and that it seems like I am stalling. I can already see the (hopefully few) flames that I will get for this chapter. I promise you that the next chapter will start Hikari's claymore days. **

**For those of you who think that Naruto is being overpowered, he is meant to be a match for Priscilla when they both awaken. His abilities over fire and wind will be largely untrained until he goes to the Elemental Nations, and even then it will take some time. Right now, he won't be able to use wind in do much more than enhance his fire abilities. **

**Think about it too, I am patterning him after a mythical creature. Extreme fire abilities, extreme regenerative factor, high speed and flexibility. There is one more ability, but I will withhold it for now. Given these clues, you should be able to guess what his awakened form is going to look like. **

**Story Word Count: 5,021 words**

**Last Edit: March 8, 2014**


	4. Chapter 3

**Well, here I am with another chapter. I hope you all looked into my newest story, **_**The Immortal Fox Lord. **_**I really had to pull myself away from writing a new chapter for that story to work on this one.**

**I got my first negative review for this story the other day, and I would like to thank that person for expressing their opinion instead of flaming me.**

**I also realize that the bijuu are not made of yoki, but chakra. I had to alter that for the plot to flow more easily, and to the humans, bijuu have yoki. They used to think that the bijuu were disasters, not creations of the Rikudo Sennin. Perception means everything. **

**If anyone is curious, Naruto is 10.5 years old in this chapter and Hikari is 8 years old. **

Naruto stood among the dead bodies that surrounded him, some severed while the others were burned. The one thing that all of the corpses shared were the looks of sheer terror that adorned there lifeless faces. It had been several years since Naruto had given Hikari the chakra seal, and it was almost time for him to meet her.

The dead bodies that surrounded him were nothing new to him, but it was starting to worry him that the yoma were banding together to attack him. He was not worried about them harming him. Despite his young age of twelve, a band of yoma was not enough to injure him, much less kill him. The fact that they were smart enough to work together was worrying him.

His tale had been spreading through the dark underbelly of the continent, yoma would tell one another the story of the claymore that would leave none alive when he hunted, and that all yoma that ever faced him would die either by his blade or flames of hell that would bow to him like a loyal pet. Even the few awakened beings that dared to attack him were swiftly dealt with. The yoma would call him the "Bloodrunner" for it seemed that he would dance and bathe in the blood of his fallen foes. They would speak of how the blood that coated his skin would leave a dye that was still present to this day. To Naruto, this only served to amuse him.

That was another thing that surprised him, if only slightly. He seemed to be aging slightly faster than Hikari. After careful deliberation, they determined that time would pass more quickly for Naruto than it would for Hikari. That would explain why Naruto would only see Hikari on certain nights while Hikari would see him every night. If his plan went smoothly, he would be three years older than his blonde friend when he went to stay with her permanently.

After he scanned the bodies around him to make sure that they were dead, Naruto sighed and sheathed the one smaller blade that he was holding on his thigh. As his seal proficiency had improved over the years, he took the time to inscribe seals along the length of all three of his blades. It wouldn't do for his prized weapons to fall into disrepair or even break.

After he had sheathed the blade, Naruto unsealed a small washcloth so that he could wipe the blood off of his face. Despite what the yoma called him, he did not overly enjoy the feeling of yoma blood on him. It made him feel unclean, and while it did give a good psychological scare to the yoma that faced him, he usually wiped it off when the battle was over. A prepubescent child walking around with a majority of his body covered in purple blood was bound to draw attention to himself, attention that he did not want. He loved his cloak of anonymity.

Looking over at the burnt bodies around him, he couldn't help but marvel at the versatility and usefulness of his ability. It made him chuckle as he recalled the face of one of the yoma before he was promptly burned to ashes by his flames. He might not have any fine tuned control like the people in Hikari's homeland, but he was able to form basic shapes like walls and blasts of fire without a great amount of concentration, and he was able to do it quickly, too. The fire only increased in intensity when he added his wind manipulation to the mix. This combination was his favorite crowd clearing technique. This was how he got the epithet of Flame Emperor. His control over fire seemed to become something of legend. It was strange that his regenerative factor did not garner such attention. Then again, there was usually no one around to witness the regeneration, unlike the fire that could be seen from a good distance away.

Luckily, the Organization never caught wind of any of this. Because they did not want any of his female warrior counterparts to learn of his existence, there was no one who could keep up with him nor keep tabs on him. As long as he watched his step when he was training and continued to act like the perfect soldier, he would not need to worry about the Organization breathing down his neck.

As he headed back in the direction of his next job, he sighed. _"I hope that Hikari has collected enough chakra in order to do what I have planned. The stuff that I am doing here has grown monotonous. Knowing Hikari, she would know how to liven things up. She is just that unpredictable."_

Naruto straightened himself and started to walk with more purpose. The faster he got the job done, the sooner he could go to sleep. The sooner he went to sleep, the sooner he would be able to see Hikari. His superiors had given him three weeks in order to complete the jobs he had been sent on. Given that he would be able to complete the job he was on in a reasonable time frame, he would have twelve days to spare until he had to go back to Staff. Since he would need two days to get back to Staff, he would have ten days to spend with Hikari.

He shuddered, and then he cracked a rare smile as he walked away. _"Heh. Ten days with that blonde nightmare. Why does that not sound as bad as I know it is?"_

**Konoha**

Walking down the streets of Konoha, Hikari held an impassive face, a mask that she developed after countless hours of training with Naruto. Only Naruto would ever see her true face, only he would see the face that was reserved for him and only him, a face of unknown affection.

On the inside, however, Hikari was elated. After so long, she had finally collected enough chakra into the seal from her pathetic reserves to meet the person who had changed her life, and in a good way. Not only would she finally get to become strong, but she would finally defeat the formerly unconquerable enemy, loneliness.

As she continued on her chosen path, she received a mixture of looks of pity and glares of anger from the population of Konoha. These did not faze her, and only served as a minute form of amusement. Nothing could ruin her mood today, not even the idiocy of the people that surrounded her.

Soon, the busy streets gave way to foliage. She had left Konoha proper and now she was on one of the paths that led to the numerous training grounds that surrounded Konoha. Due to the sheer number of training grounds, a few were forgotten and left to the elements. She training ground that she was headed to, Training Ground 87, was one of these. This training ground had not been touched since the last shinobi war in which Konoha needed to churn out as many shinobi as possible in a short period of time.

When she arrived at the training ground, she went to the clearing that she spent the last week clearing. Once she got there, she took out an bottle filled with her blood and a brush. The blonde girl uncorked the bottle, and dipped the tip of her brush into the concoction. Swirling the brush in order to get an even coat on it, she removed the brush from the life-giving liquid and started to write various symbols and kanji upon the ground.

The method that her friend would use to get to come to her world was so simple, that she almost scoffed at the idea that it would work. When she told him about the summoning creatures of her world, the elder blonde had immediately gotten interested. After listening to everything Hikari would gather from her secret readings about summoning, Naruto devised a seal that would allow him to come to her world.

The seal that Hikari was laboring to paint on the ground was a combination amplifier and space-time seal. The seal would use her chakra and make a space-time rift. The amplifier would then use what was left of her chakra to amplify the chakra pulse, so that it could be felt more easily by people on the other end space-time rift. While this would happen, Naruto would use one of his secret abilities, teleportation, to appear in the inter-dimensional plane, the space between dimensions. The amplified chakra pulse would serve as a beacon to attract Naruto to Hikari. Once he latched onto the pulse, he would be able to guide himself to Hikari.

The last layer of seals was to contain Naruto's yoki when he landed next to her. It would not do for the entire shinobi force of Konoha to appear in the clearing when they felt something not only inhuman put powerful enter into close proximity to their village.

Hikari finished her work and leaned back on her knees, huffing slightly. The entire process was way over her head and that was not even considering the seal. Hikari had grown up around two of the greatest seal masters that the Elemental Nations had to offer, but she knew right away that Naruto was beyond the both of them. Despite her limited education in fuinjutsu, Hikari could not even begin to comprehend the mass of symbols and kanji that laid before her. She was completely and utterly confused, something that even the complex seals her parents hadn't managed to do.

After she got her bearings, Hikari stood up and went to sit at the center of the seal. Hikari needed to wait an additional three hours until it was her time to do her part. She did not mind waiting in the clearing as it was tranquil and put her to ease. She had no one else, and her _family _clearly did not think much of her.

**With Naruto**

Naruto was preparing himself mentally for what he was about to do. When he had told Hikari about the plan, he withheld the intricacies of the plan, mainly because it was his part of the job. The problem with the plan he came up with was the sheer amount of power that he would have to use.

Since Hikari would not be able to supply any yoki and a very limited amount of chakra, Naruto had to foot the energy bill. He needed to summon forth enough yoki to make a hole in space and time and. Then, while still keeping the original hole open, he needed to sense Hikari's chakra pulse and rip another hole directly where it was. Once the second hole was open, he needed to transverse any obstacles in the way, and exit the tear before one of the two closed.

The plan could be likened to a tube, where he goes from one end to another. If he failed to keep the first hole open, the second one will destabilize and keep him trapped in the inter-dimensional plane. If the failed to keep the second hole open after tearing it, the first hole would destabilize and most likely blast him into another dimension, where he would most likely never see Hikari again.

To be honest, the second option scared him more than the first. If he was trapped in the inter-dimensional plane, he would at least be able to talk to Hikari and send her things that she would need. He might never get to see her face to face, but he would still be able to help her. The second option would mean that he would have failed her, and that is something that brought a strange pain to his chest whenever he thought about it.

To complicate things even further, he would need to release a ridiculous amount of yoki. Despite having unusually high yoki reserves for a warrior of the Organization, he would need to unleash close to forty percent of his yoki reserves. While this is nowhere near his limit, he had only ever released thirty percent of his reserves, and that was when he was confronted by multiple awakened beings. If he lost control for even a second, he would awaken and he would not be able to regain control of himself in time to go to Hikari. If he released too little yoki, the entire operation would end up being a failure.

He could not allow himself to fail. Failure would mean not only did he fail himself, but he failed the one person who could claim to be close to his heart.

He looked around, checking to make sure that the seals around him were drawn correctly and were not damaged. These seals were not necessary for the travel itself, but it would make life much easier for him. These seals were containment seals, and they were there to make sure that his yoki flare would not be detected by others. The last thing he needed was for the Organization to dispatch a veritable army after his head, or even for one of the Abyssal Ones to become interested in his endeavor.

Naruto shivered. Despite being one of the strongest warriors that the Organization currently had to offer, he was not arrogant enough to believe that he could take on an Abyssal One, or even the upper level single-digit awakened beings. He was too young, too weak, and did not have enough experience. While he might be able to take on one former single-digit, he knew his limits well. If he got into a fight with an Abyssal One as he is right now, he would be destroyed. His unique powers might be able to keep him alive for a bit longer, but for no longer than a couple of seconds.

The second set of seals was to place a beacon for him to locate for a way back into his home dimension. While he did not like this place, it would help him get stronger, and that strength was something he desired. He was not perfect, and he did not pretend to be perfect. If there was one goal in life that he had other than being with Hikari, it was his desire to be to strongest.

After inspecting the seals, Naruto took a deep breath and plunged himself into his yoki. As the tainted energy started to course through his body, an aura of energy formed around him, increasing in intensity as more and more yoki flowed throughout his coils.

Ten percent.

The first benchmark of the a claymore was reached. If someone were to inspect Naruto's eyes right now, they would notice that they did not turn into the standard yellow with cat-like slit that all claymores had. No, his sclera turned midnight black, and his irises turned a bloody crimson red. The look was finished with not a feline slit, but a vulpine one. Naruto grunted, as he pushed for more and more yoki. Soon, he hit his previous self-imposed limit.

Thirty percent.

He bared his teeth in defiance of the strain that was placed on his body. As his mouth opened, a full set of teeth could be seen, teeth that were not humane in the least. They were all sharpened to a point, and they pushed against his cheeks, deforming his face slightly. The teeth looked like they were powerful enough to bite through solid steel, something that no one wanted to test.

He could feel the buildup of yoki putting no small amount of stain on his body, but he chose to soldier on. He needed to this, not for just himself, but for the one that he cared for above all.

Forty percent.

For one scary moment, Naruto nearly lost control of his yoki. Hardening himself, he managed to subjugate his yoki, and directed it through his body into the area that was right in front of him. He imagined his yoki into the shape of abstract claws, and used them to put pressure on the natural space-time barrier. Steadily increasing his efforts, he was not unrewarded.

The space in front of him gave way to a dimension of white. He quickly stepped into it, and waited. Faced with the mounting strain of maintaining the opening behind him, Naruto was relieved when he felt the pulse of chakra not to far from him. Refocusing part of the yoki holding the current opening at bay, Naruto forced it to encircle the area from which the chakra pulse originated from.

The second hole started to form. It started out no smaller than those small gold coins that the villagers used to pay the handlers of the Organization, but it slowly got larger. Once the size of the hole was comparable to the one that was behind him, Naruto did not dawdle. He made haste for the new opening. He may not show it on his face, but the strain of doing his task was extremely taxing, and Naruto did not know how much longer he would be able to keep the holes open. Once he had stepped through the hole, he relaxed his yoki, and the holes closed behind him.

Unfortunately, the shock from dropping from forty percent back to zero in less than a second for the first time sent his body into shock. The last thing he saw was a clearing surrounded by a beautiful forest, and a blonde blur moving towards him at a struggling pace. When he saw this, he smiled and collapsed, his last thought reverberating through his mind.

"_Success..."_

**With Hikari - Earlier**

The wait for her part to happen was much worse than Hikari had expected. Every rustle of a leaf was a shinobi jumping through the trees, and every crunch of a branch was another child coming to the training ground in order to train. This paranoia had served to fray the young blonde's nerves, and by the time her part of the job had come around, she was ready to rip apart the slightest thing that surprised her.

Hikari inhaled a breath of air, and exhaled deeply as an effort to calm her frayed nerves. It would not do to mess up now when her job was so simple.

Once she had reached a level of calmness that was acceptable to her, she parted her kimono, reaching for the seal that had been etched on her prepubescent chest two years ago. Once her left hand was rested firmly on the seal, she placed her right hand on the center of the seal. Through her connection with the seal right over her heart, she plunged herself fully into the chakra contained in the seal.

Pleasure. Pure pleasure was what she felt when, for the first time in her life, shinobi level chakra coursed through her body. Since she never had access to anything larger than civilian level reserves, the euphoria that she felt as she communed with jonin level reserves threatened to overwhelm her. Thoughts ran through her head, thoughts that never would have been born just a few short hours ago.

"_This power...it feels so good. I feel so powerful, I feel that I can do anything. Is this how everyone else feels? If this how good it makes them feel? Maybe I should..."_

Before that train of though could continue any further, she killed it ruthlessly, horrified at what she was thinking.

"_What am I thinking? If I do not use this, Naruto-kun could be stuck wherever he is forever!" How can I do that to him!"_

Once she had finished berating herself, she channeled the chakra through her body and into the seal. Now that the euphoria of the relatively massive chakra had dissipated, the pain settled it. Since her chakra serves had never been high, her coils had remained relatively narrow. Channeling that much chakra through her body was like sending the amount of sewage that past through a sewer in a second through a straw in the same time period.

Instead of exploding, Hikari's Uzumaki blood kicked in. Her regenerative abilities, despite being weakened by a severe lack of chakra, managed to prevent her coils from exploding. Instead, they expanded to the size of a fresh genin.

Hikari, ignorant of these changes, continued her task despite the pain that it was causing her. She could feel herself weakening, and the threat of unconsciousness started to loom over her.

"_Is this my limit? Am I doomed to fail? Maybe the village was right, maybe I was a failure after all. I can't even get a task that is as simple as this right."_

The faces of people she knew passed through her mind, reminding her of what she was fighting for. This was soon accompanied by what they said.

"_Look, there is t failure"..._

"_I feel sorry for her parents..."_

"_They should have put her out of her misery..."_

Her resolve started to collapse at the faces of her parents, the people that should have supported her in her endeavors, started to appear in the mix.

"_I said no, Hikari! Go to your room, now!"_

"_Hikari, stop, you could get hurt! Now put those away and study something useful!"_

Just as she was about to collapse under the weight of all of the negative thoughts that were coursing through her mind, a good thought managed to break through the din of disapproval.

"_I have faith in you."_

Immediately, all of the despair that she was feeling was washed away. Thoughts of all the time that she had spent with Naruto passed through her head. The times he spent teaching her when she was weak. The times he spent comforting her when she was upset. The times he spent reassuring her when she was scared. The times he spent holding her when she felt lonely. The memories of all the time they spent together rushed through her head, filling her with a renewed hope.

"_I will not fail! Naruto-kun is counting on me, and I will not let him down! I will not let something as stupid as chakra flow beat me! I will succeed! I will be known! I will not fade away!"_

With the completion of that thought, Hikari gritted her teeth. She let out a prolonged groan of effort as the last of the chakra funneled into the seal. When this happened, she collapsed forward onto her knees, supporting herself from falling onto the ground with her hands.

Looking at the seal, Hikari was elated to see the seal glow with a soft blue luminance. The light stayed lit, but nothing else happened. Just when Hikari had thought something had gone wrong on her beloved blonde's end, she felt it.

The feeling that she got was not something that she had learned, it was more primal, more instinctual. It was a feeling that all animals had, a feeling that said that something unnatural was about to take place. The feeling sent a shiver down Hikari's spine, and she braced herself, knowing that something was going to happen, and that she was at the center of it.

A light appeared in an area approximately twenty five meters in front of her. When the light had stabilized, she realized that it was not a light, but a hole that was leading to a white space. She had an idea of what was happening, but she dared not hope just in case she was wrong.

Just as she was going to explode from the tension, a figure stepped through the hole. When she took in the features of the person in front of her, Hikari leaned back as she clasped a hand over her mouth, tears of joy sliding down her cheeks.

He was taller than her, and had straw blonde hair that matched his porcelain skin tone perfectly. Unlike before, he had a mouth full of sharp teeth that distorted his face instead of the regular human teeth. Above that, he had a pair of crimson red slitted eyes that rested in pools of inky blackness. He looked slightly different, but Hikari recognized the person right away.

It was Naruto.

Just as she was going to call out to him, he underwent a drastic change. His teeth reverted back to normal, and his eyes went back to the old silver in white color scheme. He turned to look at her, and he gave her a tired smile. Just as she was going to return the smile, he started to fall forward.

Hikari climbed to her feet and rushed to her fellow blonde, hoping that he was alright. Before he could hit the ground, Hikari caught him at the arms. Hikari was not that strong, so the weight of the falling boy proved too much for her, and he hit the ground, followed by her toppling on top of him.

Afraid for his health, Hikari quickly got back up rolled the blonde male over onto his back so that she could check on him. She noticed no obvious signs of injury, and he was not coughing up blood that would sign internal injury. To top it off, he was not breathing haggardly, but was breathing peacefully with a small smile on his face.

Convinced that Naruto was only exhausted, Hikari felt the exhaustion of her actions catch up to her. Pumping that much chakra through her body had finally finished taking its toll on her body, and she was left tired. She looked down onto the boy in front of her, and started to fall forward. Before her face landed in the crook of his neck, she managed to get one line out of her mouth.

"Welcome home, my dear Naruto..."

**Elsewhere in the Elemental Nations **

A child, no older than seven years, woke up in his futon. He was thirsty, so he got out of his futon and exited his tent to go and get a drink of water.

The child was part of a merchant caravan that would traverse the land selling its goods to willing customers. For the night, the caravan had stopped in a mountain pass. The members of the caravan would usually travel on an established trade route, but most of their competitors had already departed before them and were ahead. Cutting through the mountain pass would save them time and hopefully overtake their competitors.

This would be the last mistake of the band of traders.

As the boy headed to his family's wagon for a drink of water to quench his thirst, he heard a scuffling sound coming from behind some rocks, the area where everyone else in the caravan had elected as a place to rest for the night.

Curious, the boy slowly approached the rocks and took a peek around the corner. What he saw caused him to freeze in place as the icy touch of fear started to course through his veins.

There was blood. Blood was sprayed everywhere around the clearing. All the tents that had once housed his fellow travelers were trampled, and dismembered body parts were strewn all over the rocky surface of the ground. Some, he noted grimly, looked half-eaten.

Despite his instincts screaming to do otherwise, the boy looked further into the camp. His fear culminated and exploded to newer and greater heights when he saw the prone figure of his mother. Terror could be seen marring her face, a face that was thrown into relief by the bathing light of the moon.

Hovering over his mother was a man who had his hands moving from his victim's abdomen up to his mouth. After a second, the identity of the man struck him like lightning. He started to stutter in equal amounts of grief and fear.

"T-tou-san, i-is th-that you? W-What h-h-happened h-here?"

The person turned around, and the boy saw the visage of his father, Clumps of flesh was still attached to his nails, and blood was smeared all over his face. Most of the blood had collected in the area around his mouth, almost as if he had been eating something that had a lot of blood messily. To complete the horror, the intestines of the man's wife were still clenched in between his teeth.

The bloodied adult male gave his son a cruel smile. "Ah, Kenji, you should not have come. You should have stayed in your futon like a good boy. What did your kaa-san about leaving your tent and wandering during the night when you should be asleep?"

The now-named Kenji could not reply before his father continued talking with that same mocking tone.

"Well, it looks like you need a punishment. After all, naughty boys need to be punished when they break the rules."

Before Kenji's very eyes, his father started to transform. The youngling could only stare in horror as his father's body twisted into a grotesque appearance. His skin turned from the regular light tan into a mottled purplish gray color, and the figure carried the stench of rotted meat. His light brown hair lengthened to reach his shoulders, and it lightened from its original color into a ash gray color. The teeth in his-no, its-mouth lengthened and became pointed. The fear-invoking teeth looked like they were strong enough to bite through the toughest of stones without too much effort.

After the transformation was complete, the monster, a being that should only belong in the darkest of nightmares, lunged at the young boy. The last thing that the boy saw were yellow eyes that carried cat-like slits. They housed an insatiable hunger, a hunger that was about to be temporarily quenched.

A scream tore through the night sky before it was abruptly cut off.

**Story Word Count: 5,001**

**I am so sorry that I did not update last Saturday, school is starting to get more hectic. Not only are the teachers dumping more work on us, but I also need to settle classes for the next year. On top of this, I was sent to the administration for a problem on the Friday before last, so I was was anxious all weekend. Hard to concentrate on my stories. **

**I will try and get a chapter in for both this story and **_**The Immortal Fox Lord **_**this coming week since I have a four day weekend. I also have another story idea coming up, but that is in the planning stage right now and it is only a plot bunny. **

**Well, see you all (hopefully) soon for the next chapter!**

**Mugetsu16**


	5. Chapter 4

**The last one didn't get as much reviews as I wanted, but I am not going to withhold a chapter over something as stupid as that. **

**I wrote this chapter over a period of 4 days, so the quality of the chapter may dip and rise as you read through it. **

**Also, to address the issue in the last chapter about the yoma appearing. I had no idea that you all would get up in arms over it, so I thought I would clarify the issue here. The yoma appearing in the Elemental Nations was just a sign that something unintentional happened when Naruto crossed over. It just means that other people in the Claymore universe have the chance of appearing in the Elemental Nations. **

**Well, here is the new chapter. **

When the rays of a new dawn bathed Training Ground 87, two prone figures could be seen by a random passerby, one lying on top of the other.

The figure lying on top of the other was one of a smaller build. With a closer inspection, a feminine figure was easily discernible. Blonde tresses both framed her slightly round face and fell to her waist.

The girl started to hug her makeshift pillow while grumbling about the sun. Eventually, her irritation overcame her drowsiness and her eyes flew open. Twin violet orbs greeted the earth, but they both held a glint of irritation that was felt by their owner.

It was then that she noticed that she was lying in a clearing. In addition to this, she was hugging something to her chest that was clearly not her pillow. The figure, a boy she noted, was wearing gray-silver Roman style armor with a gray shirt and leggings. On the outfit near his neck was a symbol that looked much like a swirl, except that it was formed from straight lines.

At that point, the girl realized just who she was laying on and immediately froze. Her face started to heat up as she realized how close she was to her fellow blonde. Just as she was going to get up and back off slowly, she was interrupted by a voice that was slightly tinged with amusement.

"Are you having fun, Hikari?"

In response, Hikari did something that only occurred once before, that one time being her special night three years prior.

"Eep!"

Hikari, realizing what she had just done, shot off her savior as her face attained a crimson blush, a shade that could be likened to a cherry. Once she had realized what had happened, the female's blondes face adopted a look of outrage. She rain to Naruto and started to pound on his chest as she attempted to scold him.

"Damn it, Naruto-kun! I told you to stop doing that? Why do you enjoy doing this to me?"

Naruto's face was a mask of indifference to most people, but Hikari had spent more than enough time to realize how Naruto felt in different situations. That is why she understood that Naruto was feeling a great deal of amusement and mirth.

"Hikari, what do you mean by that? Disregarding that, you seem to be quite comfortable in your present situation, and who am I to take you away from that?"

Hikari was confused, but then she noticed what her hands were doing. Some time after she had started pounding on her friend's chest, she had stopped and to make it even worse, she had started unconsciously rubbing his chest.

When what she was doing finally registered in her head, Hikari's mind shut down, and proceeded to take a step back. Naruto, starting to feel slight concern for her health, reached out to her. Before he could come in contact with her, Hikari's mind rebooted and another crimson stain colored the female blonde's cheeks as she promptly fainted.

A small sweatdrop started to form on the back of Naruto's head. "Yeah, she is going to be just fine..."

**One Hour Later**

Hikari started to stir as she felt a hand run through her hair. She unconsciously leaned into the touch because for the first time in her life, she felt perfectly at peace. She was able to let go of all her troubles at her house and in the village as the skilled fingers of her friend ran over her scalp, wiping away all of her worries.

She opened her eyes to the sight of a concerned Naruto looking down at her. Noticing that she was awake, he started to question her. 'Are you alright? You have been unconscious for quite the period of time."

She didn't deign to answer properly, but she gave a question in return. "Why are you combing my hair with your fingers?"

"I once heard that an older person sometimes does this in order to comfort a younger person, usually a child." When he finished saying this, a small look of panic crossed his face. "Why, did I do something wrong? Did I upset you?"

When Hikari heard Naruto's response, she could not help but sigh. Despite all the strength that Naruto possessed, the answer that he had just given had made it painfully obvious exactly how socially stunted he truly was. Not for the first time, Hikari cursed those who had done this to him as dark thoughts ran through her head about how she was going to punish those who dared harm her Naruto-kun!

Ending that train of thought, Hikari just answered, "No, it is not you. I am just nervous about what is going to happen soon."

Understanding what she was hinting at, all traces of emotion drained from Naruto's face. This was no longer Naruto, Hikari's closest friend. This was Naruto, supposedly emotionless bane of the yoma. After the transformation was complete, he started to talk in a tone that brook no argument.

"I brought everything that we will need. This is your last chance to back out. This process will be immensely painful, and you will lose any vestige of what you know as humanity." His face and tone then became softer. "You do not need to do this for me, Hikari. I will not think any less of you if you back out now."

Hikari met his gaze with one of her own. She would not back down now after coming so far. Her resolve hardened even further as she remembered why she was here. She had vowed to become stronger, or she would die trying. She would become strong enough to stand up to the village, strong enough to finally stick it to her so-called family, and strong enough to stand by Naruto's side instead of within his protective embrace.

Seeing the incontrovertible affirmation in Hikari's eyes, Naruto prepared himself for what he needed to do. He took a single step forward before he disappeared from view in a burst of speed.

Hikari was barely able to register this before the next thing happened. As her eyes were widening, she felt something hit her in the back of her neck. As she started to lose consciousness, she heard the distant words of the one who promised power to her.

"I am sorry, Hikari, but the next part will be unpleasant, and you need to be asleep for this. When you wake up, I promise you that things will be much better than before."

With Hikari out cold, Naruto unsealed the first of many items that he would need, a surgical table. After he had finished setting up the table, Naruto walked over to Hikari and picked her up off the ground. After gently placing her on the table, he wrapped leather restraints around her extremities. It would not do for his patient to thrash around during the operation.

Once the girl was secured, Naruto reached for his arm to unseal another wave of items. The clearing was then occupied by two similar clouds of smoke. When the clouds cleared, a sterile scalpel and a small jar filled with a mixture of blood and flesh landed in Naruto's waiting hands.

The next part was what Naruto had to slightly prepare himself. He may have slaughtered countless yoma and a smaller number of humans in his lifetime without remorse, but this was different. He actually cared for HIkari, and he did not want her to get hurt because of his incompetence.

After carefully removing Hikari's clothing from her upper body, Naruto reached up and placed the scalpel right where the tip of the sternum would be. Applying no more force than what was necessary, he started to carve a deep gash downward. When he had finished his work, the scalpel rested at the lower abdomen of the young girl, and a giant vertical gash was opened up on her torso.

With the task of the scalpel complete, Naruto sealed the small blade back into his forearm. He then reached for the jar that was filled with the vile concoction. Once his fingers had closed around it, he reached up for the lid and unscrewed the top. After he had removed and casted aside the lid, his free hand reached for one of the flaps of flesh hiding the interior of Hikari's body from the rest of the world. Finding a hold within all that blood and guts, Naruto gently parted his charge's body, and placed the fleshy concoction into the confines of her body. After making sure that the flesh and blood of the yoma he had killed for this purpose was properly integrating with Hikari's body, Naruto let go of the flap of flesh as it returned to its original position of closing Hikari's torso.

Unsealing a towel, Naruto started to wipe the blood and gore from his hands. Once his hands were clear of blood, Naruto pumped a quantity of his potent yoki into his right hand. For his efforts, Naruto was rewarded with a coating of the richest crimson over his hand. He then placed the yoki covered hand over the slit in Hikari's body, and watched as the skin flowed together, closing what would have been one of her identifying characteristics as a half-yoma, her stigma.

What he had done was not exactly healing. No, if he had introduced yoki of his level of density and potency to Hikari's body just as it was trying to get used to her own yoki, she surely would have died. Instead, he used his own tainted energy to place an indirect marker on Hikari, a marker that designated the area that should be healed first. If it was not for this action, Hikari would have had to carry the unsightly blemish for the rest of her days.

Naruto walked over to a nearby tree and sat down, resting his back against the trunk. He was mentally exhausted from everything he had to do, and he wanted to get some well-deserved rest.

While Naruto was resting, Hikari's body was undergoing some changes, both internally and externally. Inside her body, her genin-sized chakra coils and pathways started to mutate as they forever lost the ability to utilize chakra. The energy that flowed through her body became many times more dense as well was more tainted. This new energy started to flow through her, augmenting her muscles to make her stronger than any girl her age had the right to be. The outside, however, was a different story. Every scar that she received from various injuries throughout her life disappeared. Her skin tone started to lose pigment as it changed from her natural tan into something of a more pale tone. Her sun-kissed blonde hair, the most prominent of her identifying marks as an Uzumaki-Namikaze, started to lighten until it was a straw blonde color, not unlike that of Naruto's.

Her eyes opened for a brief moment, a moment that revealed the loss of her violet eyes. Instead, two pools of silver laid in the depths of her eyes, twin pools that were soon covered as her body forcibly went to sleep in order to conserve and recoup any energy that she would need for her future endeavors.

**Namikaze House**

Narumi was panting as she was trying to recover some energy after the strenuous physical exertion that she had just gone through. Today, her father was in the office trying to take care of the dreaded paperwork, and her mother had to take care of some things in the village. Because of this, she was training alone despite her parents advising her against it.

The eight-year old girl showed promise in the shinobi arts. Despite her massive chakra reserves, she had an acceptable level of control over it. She even discovered her specialties, excelling in ninjutsu, kenjutsu, and fuinjutsu, the latter two making her mother proud to no end.

She could have graduated from the academy by now, but she refrained from doing so for two reasons. First, her parents and godparents were against it. They knew how gruesome shinobi life was, so they wanted to preserve her innocence and childhood for as long as possible.

Second, and more personal, she did not want to be separated from her younger sister. Despite their lack of interaction, Narumi loved her little sister dearly. The problem was that Narumi had no way of bonding with Hikari. She had only started to try to befriend her two years ago, and her attempts were met by rejection. She knew that Hikari saw what Narumi was trying do as pity.

At first, Narumi thought that her blonde sister was getting depressed because of her inability to use chakra. This theory was blown out of the water when she heard Hikari giggling-giggling of all things-during the night when she thought no one would be listening. Narumi thought of bringing the issue up with her parents, but she did not want to ruin any potential chance she had of forming a relationship with Hikari, nor did she want to take away Hikari's source of happiness should the confrontation go poorly.

Narumi sighed. She really wanted to trust her sister in that there was nothing wrong, but she had a feeling that there was something more to the girl. The transformation that Hikari underwent from a loud, brash girl into a quiet and somewhat cold one only served to make Narumi worried even more.

She pushed the thoughts of conspiracy out of her head as she tensed to continue her training. She might not know what was happening to Hikari, but the redhead vowed to keep her sister safe from all threats, even if the threat was Hikari herself.

**Training Ground 87**

As Hikari stirred from her position asleep on the surgical table, she noticed how good she felt. The only thing that had ever come close to how good she felt now was when she had that large amount of chakra that she used to bring Naruto to the Elemental Nations running through her body.

She stretched her arms out in order to get the kinks out of her system, not even noticing when she effortlessly tore through the straps that had earlier successfully restrained her limbs. She then proceeded to arise from the table. Jus as she was going to jump around and celebrate in success of whatever she had just gone through, she was interrupted by a soft voice.

"I see that the operation was a success. Tell me Hikari, how do you feel right now? Please don't leave anything out."

Hikari whirled around and saw the figure of Naruto. Disregarding his question, she rushed up to the older male and leapt at him, wrapping her harms around his chest in a hug.

"Naruto-kun! You did it! You actually did it! I feel great, better than I ever have before! I feel so powerful, nothing can stop m-"

Before she could even complete the statement, she was forced to stop as a fist collided with the top of her head. After she had hit the ground, she looked up, upset. Before she could yell at Naruto, the said blonde started to berate her.

"Hikari, never, ever thing that. You might feel great now, but you are only around what you would rank as low-chunin level in terms of physical abilities, abilities that you cannot control for the most part just yet. Even then, just about any non-human in my world would destroy you unless you were blessed with a great stroke of luck and your opponent underestimates you. Never grow arrogant or cocky like that Hikari, otherwise you will end as a cold and lifeless corpse.

Hikari's anger evaporated as it was replaced by shame. She looked down at her feet properly chastised. Seeing that she was not going to respond, Naruto continued.

"That being said, we need to start your physical training and help you to control your yoki." When he said this, he unsealed a small jar filled with round pills from his arm. He tossed the jar at Hikari, who raised her hand and caught it. "These pills will help you suppress your yoki when you are not within the boundary of this training ground. These will forcibly suppress your yoki for twelve hours upon ingesting one of them. I want you to take one of these each day after training."

Hikari nodded and pocketed the jar for later use. She looked up at Naruto and asked him the question that had been bothering her for a while. "What happens if Minato and Kushina detect the yoki? The only yoki being that attacked Konoha within the last ten years was the Kyuubi, and once the villagers link these two facts together, they will be calling for my head!"

Naruto nodded, as if he was expecting this question. "The answer is very simple. The Kyuubi, as you call it, has absolutely no yoki whatsoever." Before Hikari could voice an objection, Naruto continued. "You told me that the fay you were born, the kitsune's chakra was split into its yin and yang components. This is when I knew that the Kyuubi was not a being on yoki-yoki has neither a yin or a yang component."

Hikari let out a breath of relief once the explanation was finished. Her eyes then lit up. "Hey, does this mean that the chakra chains won't be able to suppress my woki like it can a bijuu?"

Naruto smiled at Hikari for coming to this conclusion. "Yes, in theory both the Mokuton and chakra chains should not affect you. At least, not to the extent of a bijuu.

Hikari absorbed this knowledge, but then adopted a confused expression. "You said that I would be undergoing some training so that I could control my physical abilities. Does this mean that I will have some non-physical abilities?"

Naruto's face melted into a serious expression. "Okay, now listen carefully as I explain your potential capabilities. As a warrior, or a Claymore as the locals from my world like to call us, you will have enhanced speed strength, and reflexes. In addition to this, you will have a regenerative factor as well as a resilience that will allow you to keep fighting even after receiving an injury that would prove debilitating for a human. Finally, you can have a yoki sensing ability, which can be adapted to sense chakra once you know what to look for."

Hikari watched and listened with rapt attention as Naruto continued his explanation.

"From here, most Claymores branch off into one of two classes-Defensive and Offensive. Defensive types are marked with healing abilities superior to that of Offensive types. On the downside, defensive types are not as fast or as strong as an offensive type. Offensive types are characterized by their superior speed and strength, but they possess a vastly inferior healing ability to defensive types. Despite this, offensive types can still recover from wounds that would undoubtedly kill a normal human, and they can still reattach lost limbs. They can regenerate lost limbs given time, but they will be far weaker than they were before, a problem that defensive types do not have. Do you have any questions that you wish for me to clarify?"

Hikari did not miss a beat and asked the question that had been on her mind since Naruto had started lecturing her about class types. "Which type are you Naruto-kun?"

Naruto smirked slightly. "Oh, curious about me, are you HIkari?" Satisfied by the blush that crossed her face, he answered the question. "I am neither type. I have the strength and speed of an offensive type, but I have the regenerative capabilities and rare defensive durability of a defensive type. On top of this, I also have a special ability that further removes me from either class. Before you ask me, no, I will not tell you what it is. Do you have any other questions?"

Hikari pouted when Naruto denied her the answer to her unasked question, but left the issue alone. When Naruto set his mind on something, his obstinacy could only be matched by that of an Uzumaki.

"You said that I need to train in order to control my abilities. Does this mean that you are going to train me?" Hikari's face lit up when she said the last part.

Naruto nodded. "Yes, I am going to train you-" He was cut off when Hikari released a squeal and started to jump around, cheering over the fact that she was going to get stronger. Naruto contemplated stopping her, but decided to let her continue. She was still a child. There was still enough time to break her of that during her training.

Hikari calmed down and asked her last question. "So, when do we start?" She expected an answer that would denote a time that was soon to pass.

Because of this, it was no surprise that Hikari was struck by fear when a sadistic grin that promised a lot of pain crossed Naruto's face. "Your tort-I mean training starts now."

That was all Hikari heard before the ground in front of her exploded into shards, sending her flying back and slamming into a tree. When she scrambled back to her feet, she was greeted by a fist that sent her flying.

"Today, we will work on identifying your physical limits in strength, speed, stamina, and endurance. As a Claymore, you only need to eat once a week. Due to this, you will need to survive until sunset."

Hikari, who heard the last part, had her head swell to a comical size as she yelled at Naruto. "Are you insane, baka! At least give me some advice!"

If possible, the grin that stretched Naruto's face grew even more wide and sadistic. He opened his mouth and uttered two words that constituted his advice.

"Don't die."

**Timeskip - 8 hours later**

Training Ground 87 was a mess. Craters of various sizes and depths littered the landscape. The vegetation that had, at one point, overrun the training ground was shredded to pieces.

In the center of the field was a little girl lying spread eagle on the ground, panting as she tried to regain her breath. She was covered in bruises and cuts from the various debris that she was either too tired or too slow to dodge. As Hikari continued trying to pull herself together, Naruto walked up to her until he was standing right next to her. Hikari made no attempt to acknowledge his presence.

Naruto looked at his student/friend with pride evident in his eyes. Considering that Hikari used to be unable to even jog for half an hour, her eight hour run in "survival training" was a surprising but not unwelcome accomplishment. Sure, he restrained his abilities so that he would not kill the girl, but the fact that she was able to keep going for this long spoke volumes about the potential she held.

Naruto cleared his throat in a successful attempt to get Hikari's attention. 'I must say, I am impressed. I thought you would collapse after four hours, tops. Imagine by surprise when you manage to keep going for eight."

Hikari grinned weakly and tried to say something, but all that came out were a couple of coughs. Crouching down, Naruto pulled a bottle of water from...somewhere. He tilted Hikari's mouth open and poured the cool liquid into her waiting mouth while rubbing her throat so that she would reflexively swallow, soothing her throat of the parched feeling.

"Thanks", Hikari said weakly. She, with great effort, maneuvered herself so that her head was lying in his lap. She then proceeded to nuzzle his hand with the top of her head.

Understanding what she wanted, Naruto started to run his hand through her hair as she released a sigh of content. They sat there in comfortable silence for a bit until Hikari decided to voice her question.

"So, how did I do?"

Naruto looked down at her with a serious expression, one that eventually caused Hikari to grow nervous. Just as thoughts of failure started to flit through her head, Naruto;s expression relaxed and a small smile crossed his face.

"If you were not listening to me earlier, I will say it again. You lasted twice as long as I expected, much to my surprise. I am proud of you Hikari."

Instead of calming her down, this only seemed to increase her trepidation. Before Naruto could ask why, Hikari continued in a stuttering, unsure voice, a complete opposite to what she usually was.

"S-so, I p-passed the t-test? Y-you w-won't l-l-leave m-me?"

Suddenly, Naruto understood what was bothering Hikari. Despite the way she acted, she was truly a lonely, timid girl who just wanted someone to be her friend. She was scared that should she fail to meet Naruto's expectations, the Claymore would leave her so that she would be alone again.

Naruto gathered Hikari into his arms and turned her around so that she was seated in his lap with her forehead touching his. Neither of them really understood exactly how close they were to each other physically as Naruto started to talk.

"Hikari, are you scared that I will leave you if you fail to meet my expectations for you?"

The flash of fear in her eyes was all that was needed to confirm the statement. Naruto chuckled as he started to run his left hand through her hair in what he hoped was a comforting way. He continued on as he attempted to allay the feats of the girl who was sitting in his lap.

"Hikari, let us get this one thing clear. I will never leave you alone. You may not understand it, but you have done just as much for me as I have done for you."

Noticing the confusion and disbelief in Hikari's eyes, Naruto decided to elaborate.

"Before you and I met, I had no idea why I was alive. Every day was hell as I was trained into the ground, and I had no one that I could consider a friend. To be honest, I was slowly being driven insane. I knew that I would snap eventually, and after that, it would only be a matter of time until I was killed."

"You changed that for me. When I first saw you crying, something inside me told me to comfort you, to hold you, to get to know you. I had my reservations at the time, but I am glad that I went through with it. Do you know why?" Hikari gave him a questioning glance as he continued. "It's because you are mu purpose, Hikari, my purpose in life. I can't imagine living without you."

Hikari pulled back and buried her face in Naruto's chest. At first, Naruto thought that he had done something wrong until Hikari started to shed tears of joy and relief. They sat there in the destroyed training ground in companionable silence until Hikari's breathing became more relaxed and deeper. Noticing that she had fallen asleep, Naruto tilted her head back and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Hikari responded by turning slightly and burrowing her face into his chest.

When Naruto was certain that the blonde girl was asleep, he let out a sigh of relief. Given the way that he was raised and the reality of what he is, the male blonde never had much of a chance to grow this intimate with someone, much less someone of the opposite gender near his age. If he was honest with himself, he had no idea what he was doing when he was comforting Hikari. He just listened to his instincts and hoped that Hikari did not react negatively.

Naruto stood up and gathered Hikari into his arms, carrying her in a fashion highly reminiscent of the way newly-wed husbands would carry their wives just after their wedding.

Even though he was perfectly comfortable with Hikari using him as a bed, he was sure that her parents would be worried sick if Hikari was not in her room during the night. With a sigh, Naruto began his trek to the Uzumaki-Namikaze house to sneak in and tuck Hikari into bed.

**Hikari's Mindscape**

As Naruto carried Hikari to her house, the said girl was walking the paths of the sewer in her mindscape. After walking for a bit, she arrived in the room that housed a giant cage. As Hikari approached the cage, her instincts, however new they may be, flared. The blonde girl threw herself backwards as a giant, furry, clawed paw occupied the area that she had just vacated.

When Hikari stood back up, she peered into the depths of the cage as the massive creature that was housed within it came into focus. Soft red fur covered the entirety of the animal. Its face had black fur going from the area around its eyes up to the tips of its rabbit-like ears. It had four paws, the hind paws being similar to that of a canine and the forepaws seeming almost humanoid in structure with four clawed fingers and a clawed opposable thumb on each hand. All in all, it looked like a gargantuan fox.

However, as the light hit the giant beast, it brought into focus another physical trait that had been hidden before, its flowing tails.

To be specific, the beast had nine flowing tails.

When the last fact registered with Hikari, the girl froze as her mouth dropped open in shock. She knew who the beast was, how could she not? The villagers would not stop talking about how her _father _defeated the beast. Despite knowing that the beast could not harm her, Hikari could keep neither the stutter nor the fear out of her voice.

"K-K-Kyuubi..."

The great kitsune opened its mouth and roared at Hikari. The blast of wind that accompanied the roar was so powerful that Hikari had to dip into her yoki reserves in order to fortify her legs to prevent her from flying away.

The giant fox, recognizing the energy that was used foe what it truly was stopped roaring and grew a little nervous. Unlike chakra, she knew that yoki was corrupting enough to destroy chakra, as evidenced in what it did to her jailor. The Kyuubi was made of chakra, so she needed to be careful, lest she be destroyed someday. Her muzzle stretched into a terrifying grin as she peered down at her container.

"**Hello, my dear jailor. It's nice to see that you finally decided to grace me with you presence." **The sarcasm could be easily detected in that statement.

Hikari tried to clam herself down and think rationally like Naruto taught her, but she was unable to do that task. No amount of lessons would be able to prepare someone to meet the greatest of the bijuu, much less an eight year old.

Because of this, it came to no surprise when Hikari asked her prisoner an admittedly stupid question. "W-What a-are y-y-you d-doing h-here?"

The giant kitsune could only roll her eyes at the question. **"And here I thought you actually held some form of intelligence. I guess this is what I get for putting a single iota of faith in one of you stupid monkeys."**

When Hikari heard this, her fear was washed away and replaced by anger. "Hey, who are you calling a stupid monkey you giant fur ball! Come down here and I will make a carpet out of your ass!"

They Kyuubi stared in shock at her container before she threw back her head and released a bark of harsh laughter. When she had calmed down, she started to talk. **I'll admit brat, you are more brave and courageous than the rest of your pathetic race. The fact that you not only answered me but even had the gall to threaten me speaks volumes of you character. However-"**

The Kyuubi stopped talking as a massive killing intent flooded the sewer. Hikari could not stop herself from quivering as her lungs seized up. Eventually, her knees weakened and her legs gave out from under her as she fell to the ground, barely supporting herself with her arms. The Kyuubi then continued to talk.

"**DO NOT speak to me as if you are my better, or even my equal. You are very far away from even coming close to claiming that title."**

Hikari could not even answer as she collapsed onto the ground, struggling to breathe.

**Foolish child. You attain a sliver of power and now you think that you are untouchable. Fool. Leave, I have no time to teach a weakling to breathe. Know that you tried to call me, the Queen of Bijuu, your equal and nearly died because of your idiocy."**

The last thing that Hikari saw was a wall of red chakra before she blacked out. When she came to, she realized that she was sitting up in her bed, panting, while sweat covered her body. She also felt a faint tingling feeling on her forehead, almost like the feeling of a lingering touch.

Hikari finally managed to calm herself and laid back down in bed, trying fruitlessly to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

****CHAPTER END*****

**Word Count: 5,610 words**

**Well, that was the chapter. For those of you who are waiting for a new chapter for **_**The Immortal Fox Lord, **_**I will try and post a new chapter tomorrow. I had a killer headache that was on and off since Wednesday, and it made it hard for me to concentrate on writing my stories. I am actually surprised that I managed to get this story out. **

**Well, next chapter Naruto returns to the Claymore Universe, and he will stay there for at least two chapters. After that, he will only go back there to keep his skills sharp, but I will not write about that other than a possible passing reference. **

**Don't forget to give me some nice long reviews! I hope to cross 100 reviews and 250 followers with this chapter!**


	6. Chapter 5

**Sorry about not posting a chapter last week, I had lot of stuff due this past week at school, and yesterday was my birthday so I took some time off from fanfiction to do that. I might like writing, but I need time for myself as well!**

**Well, here is the Chapter 5**

**Training Ground 87 - 8 days later**

Hikari was on one knee, barely keeping herself from collapsing. Her claymore, the symbol of her kind, was buried with the tip in the ground as she used it to prevent herself from falling prone against the ground.

When Naruto told her that the training she was going to go through would be difficult, she had believed him, but she was still determined to go through with it. When she started her training, she soon realized that the training was not difficult at all.

It was hell.

When Hikari was first told the schedule, she was hoping futilely for Naruto to crack a smile and say that he was kidding. The smile came, but the admittance never did.

Every morning would start with a grueling run while she was wearing her full armor. hen she finished and collapsed on the ground, Naruto would then push her into a ridiculous physical conditioning routine that would have two green spandex-wearing youth fanatics in Konoha shuddering at the intensity. After all that was said and done, and she was lying on the ground with her body screaming in protest at her, she would be forced into a spar with him at full tilt. At least, it was full tilt to her. Her teacher never looked like he was trying judging my the lack of panting and the composed appearance.

To make it worse, she was allowed no breaks in between these exercises. Naruto said something about not always being at a hundred percent when facing an opponent, so she needed to get used to this. Hikari was sure that he got a sadistic pleasure from beating her into the ground, if that glint in his eyes meant anything. Ass.

Due to all of this, it was astounding that Hikari was still conscious, much less kneeling.

Even as all these thoughts ran through her head, she felt herself fading away. Her vision started to blur and darken as she pitched forward, no longer able to summon the strength that she needed to prop herself up upon her claymore.

Even as she succumbed to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness and fell, Naruto appeared in front of her and caught her by the arms, slowing her descent before her face could greet the earth. As he gently lowered her to the ground, he maneuvered her so that her head would land in his lap. When this had happened, he started to run his hand through her hair in a soft, comforting way.

Naruto had no idea how this habit had formed, but he found that it was very relaxing for Hikari and for himself. As he did this, he mused about the secret talent that he had discovered in his young student.

He had to admit, when he first promised to give Hikari power, he had no idea whether or not it would work, nor if she would survive the process. Even after the yoma flesh and blood had integrated into Hikari, he wanted her to take it easy for a couple of days. Being the girl that she is, Hikari would not "laze around", as she put it, and all but demanded that he start her training. With great hesitation, Naruto complied with the request.

It was a decision that he would never regret.

The girl would take everything that was dished out at her and always came back for more, even if she was not always raring to go at it. Sure, she complained a lot, but she never quit out of frustration and always completed the task that was set out before her.

The sheer potential that the girl held within her body was astounding. He would admit that she was not much as she was right now, but with the right training, she could match a single digit warrior at some point in the future.

Her learning curve was also nothing to scoff at. When he had first implanted the yoma flesh and blood into Hikari, she had started to subconsciously use it, evident by her increase in speed and strength. She had hardly known how to use a sword eight days ago, but his admittedly hellish training had brought it up to an acceptable level, at least for a trainee of the Organization.

When the thought of the Organization crossed his mind, Naruto's good mood soured and the small smile on his face melted into a frown. If they ever realized what he had done here, there would be hell for him to pay, secret weapon or not. Never mind that he broke multiple rules of the Organization, which was enough to warrant death itself, but he knew that they would come for Hikari, if only to prevent any Claymores from being created outside of their control. Knowing how the people of the leadership of his patron group acted, he knew that they would turn Hikari, his sweet Hikari, into one of their convoluted experiments, or possibly even worse.

That is why Naruto firmly resolved to get stronger, stronger than he was before, stronger than anyone else. The young blonde warrior rationalized that if he destroyed any threat to Hikari and himself, then the both of them would stay safe.

"_And then maybe, just maybe, we can be together, in peace..."_

With this resolution, Naruto stood up and removed himself from beneath Hikari carefully so that he would not wake her. Lifting his oversized claymore, he walked over to the nearby tree and pulled his shorter swords from where they were protruding from the earth.

After doing this, Naruto left the training ground for another one that was nearby. He knew from experience that Hikari would probably not wake up until much later, giving him some time to train. He would have a couple of hours until sundown when he would need to take a short break to return his student to her house so that her parents would not get suspicious.

When he landed in the training ground, Naruto pulled out his two short swords from where they were sheathed at his thighs and settled into a ready stance as he tensed himself. He had some serious training to do, and the absence of the ever watchful eyes of the Organization and that seemingly-eternal hawk, Galatea, would allow him to work on his lesser known abilities.

**Uzumaki-Namikaze House **

Minato, Kushina, and Narumi were sitting around the table and eating dinner after finishing the younger redhead's training. Despite the successful session, the atmosphere was incredibly tense.

All three them were worried about the youngest of the family, Hikari. Less than two weeks ago, the female blonde had spent longer periods of time outside the house, and she would only return by nightfall. At least, they thought it was nightfall. They never heard nor seen her enter the house, but she would be in her room every night when they came to check without fail.

Normally, something as little as a schedule change would cause no more alarm than what was necessary for someone of Hikari's health, but there was one thing that alarmed them. Over the last week or so, they noticed that Hikari's skin and hair was far more pale than usual.

When this first registered in Minato's and Kushina's heads, they had immediately rushed her to the hospital, thinking that the extended outings had a negative impact on her health. Because of this, they were downright shocked when they discovered that not only was Hikari fine, but she was better than she ever was before.

The medical report from the iryo-nin had said that her muscles seemed to be more developed and that they seemed a little more developed than what was normal for girls her age, even when they were going through shinobi training.

Relieved, Minato and Kushina had brought Hikari home and sent her on her way, but nowadays, Hikari was under far more scrutiny that usual. She needed to use every bit of her stealth skills to avoid any and all tails that she had when she left the house so that she could go train.

Despite their initial scare, the Hokage and his wife soon returned their attention to Narumi so that they could train her to handle what they thought was Kyuubi's yang yoki.

Narumi, on the other hand, was worried about Hikari. Sure, her sister never talked to her outside of what was necessary, and her tone was usually indifferent if not cold, but her attitude had worsened over the past days. Now, Hikari acted as if Narumi and their parents were not longer worth the effort, and that she had moved on to bigger and better things that she wanted to do in life.

This both disturbed and hurt Narumi. As far as she could remember, her blonde sister had always desired their parents' acknowledgement. Even when she had adopted her cold persona, that small spark of want could still be seen in her eyes. This changed not even two weeks ago. If Narumi was honest with herself, the new Hikari instilled in her some new fear, a type of fear that no one has ever been able to evoke from her.

When the three of them had finished eating, they looked up at each other. A silent agreement was made between the three of them. When Hikari comes home tonight, they would question her, whether she was asleep or not.

**Training Ground 87 - A few hours later**

Hikari woke up from her relatively comfortable sleep into pain. She was sore all over her body, and the throbbing from her bruises and jolts of pain from her recently-closed cuts made sure that she remembered what was doing before she passed out.

She tried to move and groaned as a fresh wave of pain washed over her. The blonde girl then laid there for a few painful minutes until her regenerative factor kicked in, slowly but surely healing the injuries that littered her body. Sure, the speed of the regeneration may not have been the fastest, but it was a far sight better than it was the first day. She remembered how difficult it was to convince Narumi that the few bruises that had remained in the morning came from a collision she had with a villager's car during her wandering through the streets.

When Hikari felt well enough to move, she dragged herself to her feet and looked around, trying to locate Naruto. When she failed to locate him, she staggered off into the direction of her house, knowing that the wounds she had left would be gone by the time she got back to her house. Naruto did not want to hurt her too badly during the spars. That would give her an excuse to relax the next day, something he did not want to happen.

Just as she was about to leave the training ground, she heard a faint ringing sound, the sound of metal clashing against metal. Her curiosity piqued, Hikari ventured in the direction of the clashing sound, hoping to find its origin.

When she located where the sound was coming from, she could not help but let her mouth drop open. Standing on the middle of the lake with his twin swords in hand was her sensei and best friend, Naruto. The thing that got her was the identical copy of the male blonde standing across from the original, holding the giant claymore.

This is the part that confused Hikari. According to Naruto, yoki was far more dense and potent than chakra. Because of this, doing such jutsu should be impossible due to the lack of flexibility of yoki. To make a comparison, chakra flowed like water, while yoki could flow like anything between honey and wet mud.

Before she could open her mouth to question Naruto, the clone of him simply disappeared. Hikari's eyes widened and darted around as she looked for the clone, but her search was interrupted by the clangor of metal striking metal.

She turned her head in an attempt to locate her teacher, but she was barely able to see anything. The two fighters were blurs of silver and gray as they fought each other, both of them trying to get the upper hand in the spar.

Eventually, the two Narutos came into focus as the clone tried an overhead downward swing to try and bisect his creator vertically. Just as it looked like the blow was going to hit, the two smaller blades, both held in reverse grip, were crossed as they caught t larger blade. Pressing his advantage, the original lifted his leg and buried his foot in the clone's stomach, sending him flying across the lake.

Hikari was about to step out of the forest, but stopped as an unnatural feeling settled in the air. The source of the feeling became obvious when twin pillars of crimson yoki erupted from where each Naruto was standing. If Hikari had been able to examine their eyes, she would have noticed that the sclera of their eyes turned black while the eyes themselves turned blood red and slitted.

Hikari by this point was struggling to breath. The sheer amount of yoki that was being released was nothing that she had felt before. Despite the difficulties that she was facing, she elected to stay seated as she continued to observe the match.

If she had a hard time following the fighters before, it was nothing compared to now. The two males had simply vanished. Unlike before, when she had been able to see blurs and environmental disturbances, there was nothing except the cacophony of clashing metal that denoted the presence of the two high level fighters.

After some time, the lull of battle was interrupted by a burst of flames. Panicking at the thought of being discovered by Konoha shinobi, Hikari was prepared to run away before she registered the energy signature. It was a signature that she was familiar with.

In fact, it was an energy signature that was eerily identical to that of her friend's.

When she realized this, the truth hit her hard. She sat there with her mouth gaping as the person she considered her closest friend and master swordsman started to use black fire and wind in his bouts, an act that was returned in kind by his clone.

Now it made sense as to why Naruto needed those scrolls on fire and wind manipulation. It also made sense as to why Naruto was classed neither as an offensive type nor a defensive type. With his wide range of abilities, Naruto was an anomaly, even amongst his kind!

At this point, the yoki from both of the warriors elevated to even higher levels. Hikari smiled as she realized how much further she had to go before she could even contemplate challenging Naruto to a serious fight. Hikari's vision then started to dim as she passed out yet again.

**Unknown Training Ground - A few hours earlier **

Naruto sighed as he released the yoki that he had used in practicing with his swords. Around him was what used to be a training ground. Now, all that was left was a giant crater that was rapidly filling to the brim with water, forming a new lake.

Practicing by himself was nice, but it could only get him so far. This was the conclusion that he had reached six months ago. Because of this, he had started developing a new seal that would hopefully remedy the problem, a seal that he had just finished recently, but never had the chance to test.

Walking to the only untouched area of the training ground, Naruto moved his hand to his forearm and channeled yoki into it, summoning a scroll that was nearly as long as he was tall. He laid it on the ground and unrolled it, revealing to the world an extremely complex fuinjutsu seal.

After he had done this, he placed both of his hands directly on the center of his seal. he inhaled and exhaled a small breath of air to prepare himself for what he was going to do. Once he had done this, he plunged himself directly into his yoki reserves and channeled thirty percent of it into the seal.

The seal reacted by glowing a shade of red. As Naruto jumped backwards, the kanji on the scroll started to peel off and move upward. Eventually, the kanji formed a shape that was distinctly humanoid.

Naruto watched with an impassive face as the yoki tainted kanji started to peel off from the figure. When it was fully unveiled, a perfect copy of Naruto stood across from the real Claymore.

The original had no outward expression, but on the inside, he was congratulating himself. He came up with this idea when he realized that yoki can take on a corporeal form, but it was too unfocused to do that, and he did not have the necessary control in order to pull it off. This is where fuinjutsu had grown useful. Using the seals as both a catalyst and a rudder, Naruto had shaped his yoki into what it needed to be.

Despite the usefulness of the new technique, it was next to useless inside of battle. Making one of these clones required the user to be absolutely still, and it took too much concentration and yoki. Trying to make one of them in the middle of battle was a death sentence, especially considering that the Organization always chose to send their sole male claymore on the most dangerous and discreet missions.

Standing up and straightening himself, Naruto reached up and clasped the claymore on his back with his right hand. Without hesitation, he lifted the blade and tossed it to his counterpart, and immediately proceeded to father his twin blades from their place on the ground into his hand. He settled into a stance and gave a slight nod to his clone, a nod that was returned when the clone had settled into a stance as well.

With the signal given, the two Claymores, one real and one fake, dashed towards each other, covering the distance between them in less than a blink of an eye.

Armed with the superior weapon, the clone started things off simple by trying to slash at Naruto. This attempt was stopped when Naruto turned away from the strike and parried the blow with both of his swords. Continuing the turn, Naruto attempted to stab his clone's back. This failed when the clone followed the momentum of his blade and turned around, catching both smaller swords in the flat of his claymore.

Deciding to kick it up a notch, the two warriors disengaged their blades and immediately began trading a flurry of blows that grew in strength and frequency over time. First, their arms turned into blurs. Their bodes were soon to follow as they began to dodge their opponent's blows with agility and grace that seemed inhumane.

as they started to pick up speed, they relocated themselves onto the lake, both males channeling yoki to their feet to keep them afloat.

They continued their dance of death, and the two showed no signs of stopping as they were evenly matched. The stab from the clone to the original's gut was swiftly parried and returned by a slash arcing for the clone's throat that was quickly blocked. The clone then lifted his sword and slashed downward, trying to bisect his creator into two pieces.

Seeing the blow coming, Naruto waited for the blade to get closer to give his opponent a small sense of security. Just before the claymore became acquainted with his head, Naruto lifted both of his swords upward and placed them crossed with one over the other, effectively blocking the claymore for the first time during the spar.

The clone's eyes widened as he was not expecting this to happen. He had been expecting a dodge or a parry from his creator. Because of this, he was caught completely off guard as Naruto lifted his foot and planted it firmly in his stomach, sending him flying over the lake and onto the land. The clone eventually managed to right himself just in time to catch a twin slash with his blade.

Disengaging the blades for the second time that day, the two blondes separated themselves and jumped away, landing thirty feet away from each other. No sooner had the two of them touched the ground, had two identical pillars of crimson yoki appear around them. The two pillars continued to climb upward as the two fighters crossed the first line of Claymores, ten percent. With their eyes holding a demonic coloring, the two child Claymores launched themselves at each other again for the third engagement of the spar.

As the two of them clashed, the environment around them started to suffer. The sheer force behind the blades released pulses of air that tore apart the ground and caused waves to form at the lake a good distance away.

Despite moving at a higher speed, the two blondes did not lose any of the grace that came with their fighting form. The blades kept flying as each opponent tried to pierce a vital of the other. Eventually, the three blurs were replaced with after images of the blades, making it seem like more than twenty blades were being swung at the same time.

The increase in yoki also allowed the two fighters to accomplish acrobatics with ease that would otherwise be at least a little difficult to do. When the clone tried to slash at Naruto's waist, the original jumped upward and dived forward at the same time, so his face was level with that of his clone. The clone, barely able to react as the momentum of his blade carried him forward, just managed to twist out of the way to his right as the right sword came downward, releasing an arc of destruction that carved a deep trench into the ground. Because of the awkward dodge, the clone was unable to do anything as the left sword of his creator stabbed him in the gut, piercing through his armor and kidney and exiting his body on the other side.. After Naruto had made the clean hit, he pulled back his right hand slightly and stabbed his right sword through the heart of his adversary.

With both blades piercing two vital points in his opponent, Naruto pulled his blades out and leapt a good distance away. His clone was a general copy of himself, and he knew himself well enough to anticipate what was going to happen next.

He was not disappointed as fire enveloped his clone and rushed outward, burning the ground around him. Naruto blocked the ebony flames with a wall of fire of his own, preventing him from getting burned. When the flames had finally settled, Naruto noticed that the wounds that he placed on his clone had already healed. The only sign of the injuries the clone received were the blood stains and the clean slits that opened the silver-gray uniform that exposed the pale flesh underneath.

Naruto observed as the enveloped his claymore with a layer of fire. Not for the first time, Naruto was glad that he added heat resistance seals to all of his blades, otherwise he would have lost a finely made claymore, something that would be hard to explain to his handlers back at the Organization.

Nonetheless, he mimicked the action of his clone and enveloped his blade with ebony flames. It might be redundant considering that the claymore he was clashing with would not be destroyed, but it did help him develop and maintain control over fire in the heat of battle.

Their ritual completed, the two warriors dashed at each other at invisible speeds, their locations marked with the smallest trails of fire. When the twin swords clashed with the claymore, a blast of intense heat was emitted from the epicenter of the contact.

Unlike before, the fighting was now slightly different. Now, as the two fighters tried to remove their opponents' head from their shoulders, they had to be extra apprehensive to dodge the frequent gouts of flame that extended from the sword as they tried to burn each other.

Wreathed in flames, Naruto's left sword came in an upward arc to try and relieve his clone of his right arm. Seeing the strike approaching, the clone shifted his body and blocked with the claymore. He continued to turn and raised his foot to try and kick the original but had to push away, lest he lose his leg.

The clone would not show it, but he was getting slightly frustrated. FIghting against two blades was hard enough, but it was made even worse when his sword was much more massive and much harder to handle. It was a miracle that he had not lost yet.

Trying something different, the clone leapt backward while hefting his massive blade. As anticipated, the original gave chase, knowing that a distance would give an advantage to his clone who had a blade with a wider reach. Because of this, it was understandable why he was slightly surprised when an arc of flames came flying at him when his clone slashed his claymore in his creator's direction.

Given his position in the air, Naruto did not have many options to avoid being burned. Following his first idea, he dig his right blade into the ground. Using this as traction, he pushed himself away from his blade as he vanished in a feat of pure speed, managing to appear behind his clone and catch him by surprise.

Since the clone was still overreached from when he sent the arc of flames, he was unable to react in time as Naruto stabbed him in the chest with his remaining blade and slashed downward, effectively disemboweling his clone and cauterizing the wound almost simultaneously.

Vanishing again, Naruto reappeared by the blade he had abandoned and picked it up, ignoring the scalding touch of the handle. He settled himself into a battle stance again, knowing that the wound he had dealt would not be enough to put down an enemy that had a healing factor almost on par with his own.

His suspicion was confirmed when a pillar of yoki much larger than the last two combined and erupted from the area the clone was located. Smirking a little, Naruto elevated his yoki to match that of his opponent's knowing that the final leg of the battle had arrived.

The real blonde diverted his attention slightly as he noticed that it was starting to get dark. He would need to get Hikari home soon, otherwise there would be some problems.

Launching themselves at each other for the fifth and final engagement, the individual clashes of blades could not longer be clearly heard. All that could be heard was a continuous pitch of clashing metal, one that let showers of sparks and black spouts of flames to start littering the field.

Naruto prepared himself and opened his mouth, releasing a ball of high pressure wind. The clone, not expecting an attack of this nature, was sent flying away when the ball of wind collided with this chest. The original warrior then sent a huge burst of yoki to his legs and arms to reach speeds unmatched in the entire fight as he caught up to his opponent.

The clone could do nothing but watch as he saw small flashes of light and fire move around his body. He gave one final grin before his body exploded into severed pieces, no piece larger than what remained of his head.

Naruto reappeared on the other side of the training field and landed on the lake. He let the flow of yoki in his body settle down as his features returned from his distorted, demonic appearance to a more human-like one. He let out his customary sigh as the blonde reviewed the battle in his head.

Thirty percent. It was as far as he had ever gone to date, and unlike most of his previous attempts, he had not strain in holding himself back from unleashing ore power, not was there any negative backlash from using that power. Other than the fatigue he felt from the extended battle, he felt fine.

The blonde Claymore assessed that he had finally mastered the thirty percent benchmark, and he was slightly elated. He had not even witnessed his eleventh birthday yet, and he was already at a level that surpassed most of his siblings, both in yoki reserves and yoki control. The only downside is that as he continued to age and train, his reserves would just continue to expand, which would only make it more harder, and possibly frustrating, to maintain his current level of control and stability, much less try and expand it.

Naruto looked back as the flesh of his now-dead clone evaporated back into yoki and returned to his body, revitalizing him a little. Placing his twin swords back into their sheaths at his thighs, he walked over to the discarded claymore and picked it up before lifting it upward and sheathing it on his back.

He frowned as he looked at his attire. Contrary to what he had expected, his clothes were completely fine except for the errant tear that usually came from battle. Despite his best tries, it seems that any clone that he makes will never be as good as the original, much like how it was in the Elemental Nations.

Satisfied that he looked presentable, Naruto walked over to the small yoki signature that he had felt earlier. As expected, he found Hikari lying there, out like a light.

The blonde male was amused. While most people would try and steer clear of a battle, Hikari went out of his way to find one. It was one of the things that made her special, and it was one to the things that Naruto could not help but like about her.

Crouching down, Naruto placed his arms under Hikari at her upper back and behind her knees and picked her up. When he had done this, Hikari started to shift in her sleep as she tried to fins a more comfortable position, namely by burrowing her face into Naruto's chest.

The elder Claymore could not help but smile as he leapt into the trees in the direction of Hikari;s house. Tomorrow would be their last day together, and tomorrow would be the day that Naruto would test and see exactly how far Hikari had gone during his stay with her.

**End of Chapter 5**

**Word Count: 5,127**

**Well, I hope you guys liked this new chapter. This was the first fight scene that I have ever written, and I hope that it came out right. I wanted to wrap up the training arc in this chapter, but the fight went on for longer than I expected, so there will be one more chapter for training. Naruto should be back in "his world" by the end of the next chapter. **

**Don't forget, review please. **


	7. Chapter 6

Hikari was sitting on a couch facing her two parents and older sister. As the stare down continued, Hikari could not help but ponder how she had gotten into this mess.

_**Flashback**_

Hikari was lying on her bed, exhausted. Not only had she gone through a grueling training session that pushed her to her utmost mental and physical limits, but the toll of being in the presence of her sensei as he fought was finally starting to affect her.

Just as she was going to close her eyes and get some well-deserved sleep, the door of her room burst open and a red blur came flying at her. Due to her exhausted state, Hikari was unable to react before the red blur landed on her stomach, driving the air out of her.

Before she could recover, the red blur, her older sister Narumi, started to talk excitedly. "Imouto-chan, imouto-chan! Wake up! Tou-chan and Kaa-chan and I want to talk to you!"

Narumi would have continued with her almost nonsensical ramblings, but was cut off when she saw the death glare aimed at her. Narumi shrank back into herself, slightly scared at the look that she was getting. Properly cowed, she sat there on her little sister's stomach as she got a monotone reply from a now-composed Hikari.

"Nee-san, if you were paying attention, you would have known that I was not asleep and that you did not need to jump on me. That being said, get of me. Now." Her tone did not change throughout the statement, but there was a certain stress that caused her older sister to shiver.

Narumi did not even argue before she quickly clambered off of her sister, Hikari rising off of her bed soon after her. Hikari stretched herself, trying to get rid of any soreness that was left in her body, an effort that was mostly futile. She released a sigh as she followed her sister out of the room.

The straw blonde girl knew that a confrontation would happen sooner or later, especially since her change in physical appearance. Despite this, she was not expecting the confrontation to be that night. Her parents usually ignored her as long as she was physically fit, or at least as much as they expected of her it terms of fitness. She was not ready for this.

Narumi led her little sister to the living room, where Minato and Kushina were seated next to each other on a couch. There was a couch similar in size across from them. When Minato noticed the two girls, he motioned towards the empty couch with his hand.

Before Hikari could respond, Narumi smiled a bright smile and grabbed Hikari by her hand and yanked the female blonde to the couch. The both of them landed on the couch, with Hikari face down in her sister's lap.

Hikari did not say anything. She expected something like this from her sister, so she just gracefully picked herself up and shot her redhead sibling a small glare. Satisfied by the freezing in her sister's figure, Hikari settled herself in her seat, and motioned for her father to start talking.

_**End Flashback **_

"_Ah yes, that's how it was." _Hikari mused to herself. She looked up at Minato, expecting him to talk now that she had given a signal.

Understanding the signal, the blonde kage took and small breath before he started to talk. "So Hikari-chan, how are you doing? Are your daily walks eventful?" Despite all his years as a shinobi, Minato still had a hard time being subtle, especially with people close to him. It was a trait that he picked up from Kushina.

Hikari rolled her eyes as a little bit of frustration settled. She needed to get some sleep to rest her tired body, and she was disturbed by this farce? "Tou-san, if you are going to interrogate me, then at least do a better job. Stop beating around the bush."

The blonde kage noticed the undertone of frustration in his daughter's voice, so he started to think over what exactly he was going to say. Before he could start talking however, he was interrupted by his wife.

"Hikari-chan, starting a little over a week ago, you have started to act differently. You are more of a recluse, and you spend more time outside. You even look different, far more pale than before? Is there something we need to know about?"

Hikari was calm on the outside, but she was cursing to herself internally. She hoped that she would be able to get through this conversation without revealing any important information, but she had underestimated Kushina's blunt and direct nature.

She had to reveal something in order to placate her parents, and she could not lie. Despite her ability to hide her emotions, she knew that Minato and Kushina were experienced shinobi. They would be able to pick up any lie that she uttered immediately, and it would only make it harder for her in the future.

Because of this, Hikari only had three options for what she could disclose to her parents. The first option was that she was talking to the Kyuubi. While she could play it in the angle that she did not know what she was doing, her parents would think that the Kyuubi had a hand in it. If they thought that, then she would never be able to travel anywhere without being followed and monitored by a squad of anbu.

The second option was to tell her parents that she was training in kenjutsu and taijutsu, something that was not a lie. What Naruto was teaching her was kenjutsu with a bit of taijutsu mixed in for the times she lost her sword, but she was sure that the response would be met negatively as well. Kushina stopped Hikari from training when she was younger, and she would probably do that again now by assigning her meaningless chores to keep her near the house.

That left her with the third option, the option that seemed the most viable. She could simply tell her family that she was hanging out with someone.

After considering her options, Hikari went with the third one. It was the most vague and would prompt further questioning, but she was willing to deal with it because the subsequent questions would be less dangerous to answer.

"I was hanging out with someone I met."

The response answered the question, and it revealed nothing that would cause too much alarm, but she underestimated the ability of her family to blow things out of proportion. Ironically, it was Narumi who did this. Hikari had completely forgotten to factor in her elder sister when she was contemplating her choices, and now she was going to pay for it.

Narumi's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as one of her hands flew up to cover open mouth. She extended her other hand as she pointed at Hikari as she shrieked, "I knew it, Hikari has a boyfriend! So tell me, what is he like? Will you bring him over!"

When Hikari has heard this, she lost her composure as her eyes flew open and she choked on her breath. She turned her head quickly to her sister about to reprimand her with subtle threats and glares when she felt something ominous in front of her. She turned her head back to find the origin of the feeling, and paled.

Sitting across from her was Kushina, and she had a smile pasted on her face that was far too sweet to be anything benevolent. To make it even worse, a dark aura was gathered around her, an aura that promised death to whoever was inane enough to defy her. Hikari started to tremble slightly when Kushina started to talk to herself with a tone that betrayed her slight insanity.

"So, some little monkey thinks that he is good enough for my daughter, huh? Tell me Hikari, what is this that I hear about a boyfriend?"

Hikari managed to snap out of her stupor and said "It's not what you think! I met him when he was sleeping in the forest! We just spend some time together!"

At this point, the smile melted off of Kushina's face and a fierce scowl spread across her face. Her crimson locks split into nine parts and started to wave in the air, almost like tails. To top it all off, the aura of death that had surrounded her only increased in intensity.

The older redhead reached over and clasped Hikari by her shoulders, shaking her back and forth "You were sleeping together!"

Before Hikari could deny the statement, Kushina let go off her and started to talk to herself, her voice slowly increasing in intensity. "Some bastard out there pressured my baby into doing things. That bastard touched my baby inappropriately. That bastard deflowered my baby."

After she had said this, she leapt out of the couch and tried to rush to the armory, but was intercepted by Minato. He held her around the waste as he tried to reason with his. "Calm down, Kushi-hime, I'm-"

Minato was cut off when his wife raised her foot and kicked him cleanly between his legs. When Minato fell on the ground and started to clutch his groin, Kushina started to stomp and him as she ranted. "Calm down! You want me to calm down! I'm going to chop that bastard's balls off and rub them into his ass for deflowering our baby!"

Narumi and Hikari were still seated on their couch, sweatdropping at the almost comical scene. Hikari cleared her throat and started to talk, trying to reason with the clearly deranged woman.

"While I admire your drive regarding my chastity and protecting my honor, need I remind you that I am only eight, and that I am far too young to have a boyfriend, much less perform the activities that you are implying."

When Kushina heard this, she calmed down and blushed. She started to rub the back of her head, a sheepish smiling crossing her face. "Whoops, -ttebane. Looks like I got carried away."A groan was heard coming from under her foot, and when she looked down, she saw her husband on the ground, still cradling his balls.

"Minato-kun!", Kushina yelled in horror. She bent down and tried to drag him up onto the couch, but this only seemed to cause him even more pain. Giving up this task, Kushina just waited for her husband to recover from the pain and sit in his seat on the couch.

After the blonde kage had managed to pull himself back together, he gave his younger daughter a serious look, and the mirth from earlier was gone. "Hikari, I know that you want to have a friend, but I think that it is best that you tell us about him. It is for-"

At this point, an inexplicable rage rose up within Hikari, and she snapped at Minato, shocking both Narumi and Kushina. "It's for my own good? How could you say that? Is it for my own good that I was alone before meeting someone? Is it for my own good that I am ostracized by the very people of Konoha. Is it for my own good that I should not learn how to defend myself? Is it for my own good that you must run every aspect of my life? How arrogant are you to perceive that you know what is best for everyone?"

Minato and Kushina could not believe what their youngest had just said. She was usually a quiet and reserved person, avoiding conflict if she could. Here was the same daughter that was confronting them right now!

Hikari would have continued, but she was cut off when Narumi put her hand over her mouth. "Imouto-chan, I think that it is best if you told them. They need to know. They are your parents."

Hikari gave a look to her sister before she calmed down. After she had managed that, she looked back up at her parents. "His name is Naruto, there is nothing else that you will get out of me." Her eyes grew colder, and a deadly edge entered them. "Do not try and set a tail on me tomorrow."

When the two parents had heard the name, they froze. Hikari, seeing that they were not going to do much else, got up from the couch and headed for her room. She was tired, and she had a lot of energy that she needed to recoup for tomorrow.

Narumi soon followed the lead. She got up and gave two meaningful looks her her parents, and headed for her room. Despite the way that she had acted during the night, she knew that something had gone horribly wrong with her sister, and it was her job as the older one to fix it.

While their two children were leaving the room, Minato and Kushina remained where they were. They had not heard that name in a long time, the last time being the night that both of their daughters born. In synchronization, the two of them looked at each other, Kushina asking the first question.

"You don't think...?"

Minato, being the more logical one, shook his head negatively. "We saw Naruto ripped away from us my that portal. Chances are that this Naruto is not ours."

Tears started to form at the edges of Kushina's eyes. "P-please, I-I need t-to g-g-go and ch-check. H-He m-m-might be-"

Kushina was cut off by her husband. "Yes he might be there, and that is a pretty big might. However, this is most likely not our Naruto, and just some other person who bears the same name as our son. Tomorrow I'll send a chunin to tail Hikari, and that should lead up to her mystery friend. I hope that will at least give you some peace of mind."

Minato was waiting for an answer, but when none was forth coming, he looked up at Kushina to see what she was doing. Instead of seeing a relieved or panicky face, Kushina had a tear-stained face of serenity as she was sleeping. She had fallen asleep from all of the emotional turbulence of the day.

Chuckling to himself, Minato picked up Kushina and carried her off to their shared room. What they failed to notice, however, was the small shadow that was left near the living room.

Sitting there is the shadows was a young girl with red hair, and her eyes widened in shock as she heard and processed the information that she had just gotten. She would have went to sleep, but she heard her parents speak downstairs of the important stuff, and her curiosity was piqued when she heard mention of a son.

"_Son? Tou-chan and kaa-chan have another child? Why have I never been told of this?" _Narumi got up from her hiding place and headed to her room, her last thoughts flitting through her head.

"_Something is happening, and I don't like it. Tou-chan and kaa-chan are hiding something this big from us, and Hikari has become withdrawn all of a sudden. The coinciding appearance of this 'Naruto' character also raises some questions. I don't like this."_

Narumi crawled into bed and slipped under her covers. She had a lot of digging to do, but she needed to rest first.

_**Next Morning**_

Hikari opened her eyes as the sunlight spilled through her window, casting light upon her eyes. Despite all the maturing that she had gone through over the last few years, some parts of her personality still matched that of an eight year old girl. In this case, it was her dislike of the sun in the morning. Even as she tried to crawl out of bed, she was cursing the sun with death threats

"_Someday, someday you will rue the day you blasted your annoying rays at my eyes! Rue!"_

Just as she was going to continue her half-insane monologue, she froze as she caught sight of the clock that was lying on her desk. It might have been the extra strenuous day the day before or maybe it was the meeting that she had with her family, but she had woken up later than usual. Much later. She was an hour late to meet her sensei, and she was filled with dread.

The moment after this horrible piece of information had registered, her bedroom exploded into a flurry of activity. Clouds of dust were lifted into the air, and objects were sent flying all over the place as Hikari got ready to depart from her house. The sight was actually quite comical to see, especially after a cat yowled from being tossed into the wall.

When Hikari had gotten her armor and uniform on, she proceeded to open the window and jump out, landing on the ground. She shot off at a brisk pace, one that was unmatched by most genin.

"_Good thing I already ate yesterday, otherwise I might be in trouble. Sensei is already going to be displeased enough as it is."_

She continued her brisk pace, and eventually landed in her training ground, where she spotted her sensei sitting cross-legged on the ground. As she entered the clearing, her sensei's eyes opened, slight irritation visible within the depths of the organs.

Instead of saying anything, Naruto just through her his claymore, and drew his two shorter swords. Without even a signal, he launched himself at Hikari and attempted to carve a grisly X into her chest. Luckily, Hikari managed to stop the blade in time.

"Naruto! What the hell are you doing? You nearly killed me!"

Naruto did not even bat an eyelash as he gave her an answer in response. "This is the final day, and it is your final test. Draw out your yoki, or die."

Before Hikari could respond to that, Naruto shifted his swords to the left, drawing the more massive blade away with the shorter ones. This gave Naruto the opening to lash out with his right foot, kicking her in the stomach, sending Hikari flying across the field and crashing into a tree, knocking the wind out of her.

When Hikari's vision managed to clear, she saw a blade whistling towards her head. Knowing that blocking with her blade would only trap her against the tree, Hikari managed to roll out of the way and get back on to her feet with her back facing Naruto. Before she could turn around and engage her opponent, another blow connected with her back, sending her sailing away again.

While she was flying through the air, Hikari could not help but curse to herself. _"Damn it, this is too much. Not only is he faster and stronger than me, but he also has more experience when it comes to fighting!" _Spotting the tree that she was headed for, an idea popped into her head. _"This better work, otherwise I may end up dead. Naruto sure isn't pulling his punches in this one." _

As Hikari approached the tree, she started to twist herself in mid air. In a burst of extreme acrobatics, Hikari managed to twist herself around in a complete 180, and plant her feet on the tree, sliding down the trunk of the tree with a small application of her yoki. She managed to lift her blade and block instinctively as one of the swords of her opponent clanged with her borrowed claymore. When she looked up and gazed at her foe, she spotted the blade in his right hand approaching her left shoulder. Unable to react in time, the blade nestled itself into the spot where her arm met her torso.

Pain. Large amounts of pain exploded from the spot where she was injured. She was no stranger to pain, her training sessions from the earlier days had made sure of that, but she had never received a wound that was a grievous as this one. It did not help that the blade and brushed by one of her nerve clusters, making the pain radiating from the wound even worse.

The elder claymore pulled both of his blades free and swung them, hoping to bisect Hikari at the waist. Despite the haze of pain that she was in right now, Hikari managed to clumsily dive out of the way. When she looked back, she saw Naruto approach her, with the tree that she had just been resting against cut down.

As Hikari tried to heft the giant blade to defend against the approaching threat, the implications of what Naruto had done to her with that stab finally hit her. Not only had he inhibited her with the pain that washed through her, but the injury to her shoulder made her incapable of hoist the claymore, and she was not yet strong enough to wield a claymore with just one hand.

Due to this, when Hikari tried to lift the massive blade, the sword sagged back down, the strength that Hikari applied to the blade incapable of raising the blade. Unable to mount a proper defense, Hikari was shocked when Naruto disappeared from view instead of pressing his advantage.

Before Hikari could start contemplating where her friend had gone, her back exploded into pain as it was slashed open, blood flying out of the open wounds. Her mouth opened into a wordless scream as she collapsed on he knees, no longer having the strength to support herself.

Even in her delirious state, Hikari was able to sense Naruto appear in front of her with a raised blade. Despite not being able to see his face, she knew that he was disappointed in her performance, and for some strange reason, this hurt her more than the fact that she was about to die.

"Hikari, I had high hopes for you. I thought you had promise, and I thought you were special. Maybe I was wrong. It looks like all your dreams are just going to remain like that. Dreams." With this, Naruto swung his blade downward, the sword seeking to end her life.

When that last sentence was spoken, something within Hikari broke. Throughout her life, no one ever believed in her, and thought that she would never amount to anything. The villagers. Her godparents. Even her so-called father and mother. When Naruto said that he gave up on her, something within her cracked.

Instead of breaking her resolve, Naruto's lack of faith only seemed to anger her. Who was he to judge her? Who was he to say that she was not strong? Who was he to look down on her as if he was something better than her?

Even as the last of these thoughts crossed her mind, Hikari felt a well of energy rise up within her. Desperate for anything to help her, she plunged into the source of energy. When she had done this, Strength flooded her body, and the pain from her wound on her shoulder seemed dulled.

Unknown to her, her eyes changed from silver to a glowing yellow with a feline slit.

With the energy coursing through her, an ice blue aura exploded around her. With this new strength, Hikari lifted her blade, and blocked the one that was descending down upon her. She pushed the blade upward, causing Naruto to leap back, lest he open himself to further attack.

When Naruto saw the ice blue aura envelop his student, he knew that she had succeeded in the task that he had set for her. Before he could continue thinking, he lifted the blade in his right hand, blocking the strike filled with killing intent. Knowing that he would need to stop Hikari before she accessed more yoki than she could handle, Naruto disappeared in a blur of motion and appeared behind his student. A quick chop to the neck knocked Hikari out before she could turn around and attack her blonde teacher. Hikari collapsed on the ground, dropping the blade, making it fall underneath her.

As the blonde girl was collapsing, Naruto stabbed his two blades into the ground, caught the falling body, and sat down, lowering her head into his lap. When her head was resting on his lap, he started to run his hand through her hair, an action that had a positive effect on Hikari many times before.

Naruto did not show it on his impassive face, but he was proud of his student. Despite what he had said earlier, he had fully expected Hikari to access her yoki reserves. She was just the type of person to do it, and the results from her training proved it. In less than two weeks, Hikari went from a normal girl to a girl who could give most of those seasoned genin in this village a run for their money. Sure, she wasn't much compared to full fledged warriors, but she was only eight. Given enough time and perseverance, Naruto was confident that Hikari would grow to match the single digits of the Organization, if not one of the top five.

Naruto sat there for a while, content with letting Hikari rest. Sure, he were losing valuable time that could be used to train himself or train Hikari, but it was his last day, and he wanted it to be calm and relaxing for both himself and Hikari. The blonde male stood up and picked up Hikari. Once this was done, he leapt into one of the highest branches in the surrounding trees, and placed Hikari back in his lap, content to watch the day go by as he waited for Hikari to regain conscious, never ceasing in running his hand through her hair.

_**Few hours later**_

In one of the tallest trees of Training Ground 87, a young blonde girl was stirring from her sleep. She reached her hands up to her face, and started to rub her eyes, trying to wipe the last vestiges of listlessness from them. When she removed her hands from her eyes, she looked up and froze as she saw the impassive look on her teacher. Before she could say anything, her teacher asked her a question.

"Good afternoon, Hikari. How are you feeling right now?"

When Hikari heard this, the memories of what had happened earlier in the day ran through her mind. Because of this, she raised he hand and slapped Naruto across the face. With a yelp, she pulled her hand back and cradled it, the appendage throbbing from coming into contact with something with the consistency of steel. Unable to cause Naruto any physical harm, Hikari settled for yelling at him.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'HOW AM I FEELING'? YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WAS CUTTING ME UP, YOU ASS! YOU NEARLY-" Hikari stopped talking as her hand explored her body, confirming that she had no wounds. "Hey, I'm not dead!"

Naruto have her a deadpan stare. "You're abilities of deduction astound me", he said drily.

Hikari would have hit him, but remembering the failure from last time, she settled for blushing and glaring at him. In response, Naruto just chucked lightly. "You pass, by the way."

Noticing Hikari's confused look, Naruto decided to elaborate. "You passed my test. For the first time ever, you have managed to draw out your yoki."

When Naruto had said this, Hikari had a brief flashback to when she had felt raw power course through her body. "Do you mean that rush of power that I felt earlier was my yoki?" she asked in an awed manner.

Naruto nodded in affirmation. "Yes, that was your yoki. Ten percent of it, if your physical changes signified anything."

A giant smile spread across Hikari's face as she started to talk somewhat excitedly. "Cool, that was only ten percent? Image how strong I'll be at a hundred per-"

"NO!" Naruto yelled, causing Hikari to stop talking. "Hikari, there are some things that I need to tell you about your yoki. Releasing more yoki will give you a larger boost of strength and speed, but it will also put you at a greater risk of that."

Hikari looked confused and slightly scared. Naruto had never yelled like that before. "At risk of what?"

Naruto sighed and picked up Hikari, leaping out of the tree and onto the ground. He leaned his back onto a tree, and began his lecture. "You might want to get comfortable, cause this might take a while. For all Claymores, yoki has four markers. These markers are at ten percent, thirty percent, fifty percent, and eighty percent."

He looked down, and seeing the comprehension in Hikari's eyes, continued. "What you used was ten percent. Generally, when a warrior accesses ten percent of her yoki, her eyes will turn a luminous yellow, and her pupils will turn into feline slits. When a warrior accesses thirty percent of her yoki, her teeth become longer and much sharper, carnivorous in nature. You saw both of these when I came here." Hikari nodded in understanding.

"The two that you have yet to see are fifty percent and eighty percent. When a warrior accesses fifty percent of her yoki, the veins and muscles all over her body start to bulge and grow in size significantly. It does look very grotesque. Trust me, you will know it when you see it."

"Eighty percent, however, is the limit. Warriors never access eighty percent of their yoki unless they are absolutely desperate. There are no changes at eighty percent, but this is the highest that any warrior should go."

Hikari looked up in confusion. "What happens when a Claymore accesses more than eighty percent of her yoki?"

Naruto's eyes gained a grave look, and he looked down at her. Gravely. he continued. "When a warrior accesses more than eighty percent of her yoki, then she undergoes a process called awakening. This forcibly pushes a warrior from eighty percent usage to a hundred percent. At this point, the yoma half of a claymore overtakes the human half, and the Claymore becomes a yoma."

Disregarding the look of horror on Hikari's face, Naruto continued. "The yoma created is not just any yoma. This new yoma has far more power, strength, and speed than any of the run of the mill yoma. To make it even worse, they have intelligence, something that regular yoma do not have. There is no returning from awakening."

He looked Hikari directly in the eye. "You know that I have to leave today, so here are my instructions. You will need to continue training by yourself, especially with your yoki so that you can control ten percent easily. Do not go beyond that. I will leave behind a couple of seals that will help you suppress your yoki, but as they say, prevention is better than cure."

Hikari just nodded dumbly, still trying to process the information that was given to her. She knew that she would go through a lot with her acceptance of Naruto's offer, but she didn't think that it would be this much!

There was little more she could do. She might be a child, but one of the lessons that Naruto had managed to beat into her head was what's done is done. There is not use crying over it.

Naruto gave one last look to her before getting up. "Also, try to learn to control your physical boosts at ten percent. When I get back next time, I expect a better fight." With this, Naruto extended his hand out to Hikari, waiting for her to grasp it. When she did, he pulled her to her feet. Naruto turned around and was about to leave, but froze in shock because of what had happened next.

When he looked down at his waist, two pale arms could be seen wrapped around him. Not knowing what to do, he twisted around in Hikari's grasp and awkwardly returned the hug. When Hikari had released the elder blonde from her hug, she gave one last megawatt smile, causing a small fire to flare once again in Naruto's chest. Before the male could react, Hikari turned around and set out at a brisk pace for her home.

While she was departing, Naruto clutched his chest, but unlike before, he welcomed the feeling. The flare of warmth made him feel oddly happy, and he realized that it only reared when Hikari was around. He gave a content smile, and turned around walking to the area he entered the realm.

He would not be back for six years.

**Word Count: 5,467 Words**

**Well, finally done with the training arc. I have to admit, that I had a major case of writer's block for this chapter, and I don't think that this chapter was anywhere near as good as the other chapters. I had to rewrite this chapter three times, and this one was the best version. **

**So anyways, I think I may have forgotten to mention, but the fight scene in the last chapter was my first one ever, and the one in this one was my second one. If you guys could give me some feedback on how the fights were written, that would be great. **


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